asia
China reports human case of H10N3 bird flu, a possible first
A man in eastern China has contracted what might be the world’s first human case of the H10N3 strain of bird flu, but the risk of large-scale spread is low, the government said Tuesday.
The 41-year-old man in Jiangsu province, northwest of Shanghai, was hospitalized April 28 and is in stable condition, the National Health Commission said on its website.
No human case of H10N3 has been reported elsewhere, the commission said.
“This infection is an accidental cross-species transmission,” its statement said. “The risk of large-scale transmission is low."
India's COVID-19 tally reaches 28,175,044 with 127,510 new cases
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 28,175,044 on Tuesday with 127,510 new cases reported in the past 24 hours, said the federal health ministry.
The daily spike of new cases has been falling over the past couple of weeks. The cases registered in a day have fallen to the lowest level in nearly two months.
Read:Indian economy, hit by COVID-19, shrinks by 7.3% in 2020-21
Besides, 2,795 deaths were reported since Sunday morning, taking the death toll to 331,895.
There are still 1,895,520 active cases in the country with a decrease of 130,572 in the past 24 hours. The number of daily active cases has been on the decline over the past few days, after a continuous surge since mid-April.
A total of 25,947,629 people has been cured and discharged from hospitals across the country, showed the latest data from the federal health ministry.
India kicked off a nationwide vaccination drive in January, and so far over 216 million vaccination doses have been administered across the country, and 2,780,058 doses were given on Monday alone.
Presently the third phase of vaccination is going on, covering all people aged 18 years and above. However, an acute shortage of vaccines is being seen across the country.
Read: India fought first wave of Covid-19 courageously, will be victorious in second round: PM Modi
Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up testing facilities across the country, as 346,792,257 tests were conducted till Monday, out of which 1,925,374 tests were conducted on Monday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday.
Three types of vaccines are being administered to the people in India, including Covishield, Covaxin and Russia-made Sputnik-V.
Pakistani TV bans Hamid Mir after he criticised army
A Pakistani television station Monday took a prominent journalist off air, removing him as host of a popular talk show after he criticized the country’s powerful military, the journalist and rights groups said.
The development comes just days after the journalist, Hamid Mir, made a fiery speech at a rally in support of a fellow reporter, Asad Ali Toor, who was beaten up by three unidentified men in his apartment in Islamabad.
Geo News TV did not comment on the changes regarding its “Capital Talk,” a five-days-a-week program during which Mir would invite guests to debate current events in the country. Journalists and press freedom advocates often accuse Pakistan’s military and its agencies of harassing and attacking journalists. The government insists it supports freedom of speech.
READ: Pakistani war criminals should be brought under trial: Envoy
In a statement on Twitter, Amnesty International denounced the ban on Mir and asked Pakistani authorities to protect free speech. “Censorship, harassment, and physical violence must not be the price journalists pay to do their jobs,” it said.
Also on Monday, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan denounced Geo News for taking Mir off air. It said the action against him comes after he spoke fervidly against the escalation of curbs on freedom of expression in the country.
Local journalists’ groups, which document attacks or violations against journalists in Pakistan, say the period from May 2020 to April 2021 saw 148 such attacks.
Mir confirmed his removal in a text message to The Associated Press. He later tweeted that it was nothing new for him. “I was banned twice in the past,” said Mir, who had also in the past been fired by Geo News.
Mir was attacked in 2014 in the port city of Karachi, when a gunman critically wounded him. His family at the time blamed the country’s intelligence service for orchestrating the attack. The perpetrator was never publicly known.
Geo News’ move drew swift condemnation by journalists, politicians, and members of civil society groups. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists asked the TV station to explain whether the step was taken under government pressure.
READ: Pakistani, Indian militaries agree to stop firing in Kashmir
The station’s owner, Mir Shakilur Rehman, was arrested last year in a decades-old case related to allegations of tax evasion in a real estate purchase. He was freed months later on a court order.
Toor, the journalist beaten in his apartment, works for the Aaj News Pakistani TV. He later told police his attackers claimed they were from the Inter-Services Intelligence. However, the spy agency days later distanced itself from the attack.
On Friday, Mir along with dozens of Pakistani journalists attended a rally in Islamabad to condemn the attack on Toor. So far, authorities have not arrested anyone in connection with the attack and police say they are still investigating.
Indian economy, hit by COVID-19, shrinks by 7.3% in 2020-21
India’s economy, pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic, contracted by 7.3% in the 2020-21 financial year, just before the country was hit by another catastrophic surge in infections.
The economy grew at a 1.6% annual rate in the January-March quarter, according to figures released Monday by the government, but that recovery was stifled by a resurgence of infections in March. Daily new cases set global records, spurring many states to announce widespread restrictions and lockdowns.
New cases and deaths recently have begun to decline, but much of the country is still under some form of a shutdown, with many industries and businesses unable to resume work.
In January, a government survey estimated the economy -- previously one of the fastest growing among major nations -– would bounce back, expanding 11% in the current fiscal year, which began in April. But some ratings agencies say growth is likely to slow to about 10% due to the most recent surge in COVID-19 cases.
Read: COVID-19 might leave adverse impact on Indian economy
On Monday, India registered over 150,000 new cases and more than 3,000 deaths. Overall, the country has the second highest total number of infections, after the United States, with more than 28 million confirmed cases and nearly 330,000 deaths. Both figures are believed to be vast undercounts.
After registering a daily peak of over 400,000 new cases in May, experts say infections seem to be easing, especially in the capital, New Delhi, and Mumbai. But there is concern the virus may still be rampant in the poorer countryside, where access to health care is more limited.
Even though many states and cities remain under lockdown, a few have started to ease curbs on some types of economic activity. New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has extended the current lockdown to June 7, but announced that manufacturing and construction activities can resume from Monday with health measures in place.
“We have to maintain a balance between controlling the spread of COVID-19 and allowing economic activities,” Kejriwal said at a virtual news briefing on Friday, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
Kejriwal said the lockdown will be gradually lifted, with an emphasis on helping the most vulnerable, such as day laborers and migrant workers, many of whom work in factories and construction sites. Many such workers were left unemployed overnight when the government imposed a sudden lockdown in March last year, causing huge distress.
India’s economy grew at a 0.4% annual pace in the October-December quarter, after two consecutive contractions pushed the country into a recession last year.
India fought first wave of Covid-19 courageously, will be victorious in second round: PM Modi
The country fought the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic “courageously” and it would be “victorious” in its ongoing fight against the virus during the second wave, PM Narendra Modi said on Sunday.
“In the form of the corona pandemic, we are being continuously put to test. This is a crisis that has plagued the whole world, so many people have lost their loved ones. Even big countries were not spared from its devastation,” Modi said in his monthly radio programme ‘Mann ki Baat’ reports The Times of India.
He emphasized that no matter how big the challenge, the country’s ‘vijay sankalp’ (resolve to be victorious) had always been equal to the challenge. “Our collective strength and our spirit of service has always rescued the country from the midst of every storm,” he said.
Also read: India's COVID-19 tally crosses 28 million as daily cases fall
During the programmed, he spoke to three people involved with transporting oxygen cylinders and containers through rail, road and airways, and listened to their experience and challenges during the recent crisis when many parts of the country faced severe shortage of medical-grade oxygen. He also pointed to the government completing seven years in office and highlighted signature initiatives, including power connections to all households and the Jal Jeevan mission to provide tap water to all rural homes. “In the midst of this pandemic, India is moving forward with the resolve of service and cooperation,” he added.
Modi pointed to the scheme to provide tap water connection to every rural household in the country by 2024 under Jal Jeevan Mission and said it had made strong progress without any break during the pandemic. “In the seven decades after independence, only 3.5 crore rural homes of our country had water connections. However, in the last 21 months, 4.5 crore houses have been given clean water connections. Of these, 15 months were of the corona period,” he added.
Also read: Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps
The PM also noted the contribution of farmers and the agriculture sector during the pandemic. “The agricultural sector protected itself from this attack to a great extent. Not only did it keep itself safe, but the sector also progressed, moving forward. Farmers produced record output and this time, the country went on to procure record amounts of crops. This time, in many places, farmers have got more than the minimum support price for mustard,” he said.
Noting that India was able to provide support to every citizen due to record food grain production, he said, “Today, 800 million underprivileged citizens are being provided free ration in this hour of crisis. So, no such day ever occurs in a needy home when the stove is not lit.”
China easing birth limits further to cope with aging society
China’s ruling Communist Party said Monday it will ease birth limits to allow all couples to have three children instead of two in hopes of slowing the rapid aging of its population, which is adding to strains on the economy and society.
The ruling party has enforced birth limits since 1980 to restrain population growth but worries the number of working-age people is falling too fast while the share over age 65 is rising. That threatens to disrupt its ambitions to transform China into a prosperous consumer society and global technology leader.
A ruling party meeting led by President Xi Jinping decided to introduce “measures to actively deal with the aging population,” the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said they agreed that ”implementing the policy of one couple can have three children and supporting measures are conducive to improving China’s population structure.”
Read: China, Philippines swap protests over Manila-occupied island
Leaders also agreed China needs to raise its retirement age to keep more people in the workforce and improve pension and health services, Xinhua said.
Restrictions that limited most couples to one child were eased in 2015 to allow two, but the total number of births fell further, suggesting rule changes on their own have had little impact on the trend.
Couples say they are put off by high costs of raising a child, disruption to their jobs and the need to look after elderly parents.
China, along with Thailand and some other Asian economies, face what economists call the challenge of whether they can get rich before they get old.
The Chinese population of 1.4 billion already was expected to peak later this decade and start to decline. Census data released May 11 suggest that is happening faster than expected, adding to burdens on underfunded pension and health systems and cutting the number of future workers available to support a growing retiree group.
The share of working-age people 15 to 59 in the population fell to 63.3% last year from 70.1% a decade earlier. The group aged 65 and older grew to 13.5% from 8.9%.
The 12 million births reported last year was down nearly one-fifth from 2019.
Read: China may buckle down to reunify Taiwan after crackdown on Hong Kong
About 40% were second children, down from 50% in 2017, according to Ning Jizhe, a statistics official who announced the data on May 11.
Chinese researchers and the labor ministry say the share of working-age people might fall to half the population by 2050. That increases the “dependency ratio,” or the number of retirees who rely on each worker to generate income for pension funds and to pay taxes for health and other public services.
Leaders at Monday’s meeting agreed it is “necessary to steadily implement the gradual postponement of the legal retirement age,” Xinhua said.
It gave no details, but the government has been debating raising the official retirement ages of 60 for men, 55 for white-collar female workers and 50 for blue-collar female workers.
The potential change is politically fraught. Female professionals welcome a chance to stay in satisfying careers, but others whose bodies are worn out from decades of manual labor resent being required to work longer.
The fertility rate, or the average number of births per mother, stood at 1.3 in 2020, well below the 2.1 that would maintain the size of the population.
Read:Biden’s solar ambitions collide with China labor complaints
China’s birth rate, paralleling trends in other Asian economies, already was falling before the one-child rule. The average number of children per Chinese mother tumbled from above six in the 1960s to below three by 1980, according to the World Bank.
Demographers say official birth limits concealed what would have been a further fall in the number of children per family without the restrictions.
The ruling party says it prevented as many as 400 million potential births, averting shortages of food and water. But demographers say if China followed trends in Thailand, parts of India and other countries, the number of additional babies might have been as low as a few million.
North accuses US of hostility for S. Korean missile decision
North Korea said Monday the U.S. allowing South Korea to build more powerful missiles was an example of the U.S.’s hostile policy against the North, warning that it could lead to an “acute and instable situation” on the Korean Peninsula.
It’s North Korea’s first response to the May 21 summit between the leaders of the United States and South Korea, during which the U.S. ended decades-long restrictions that capped South Korea’s missile development and allowed its ally to develop weapons with unlimited ranges.
Read: South Korea mulls dropping masks for vaccinated
The accusation of U.S. policy being hostile to North Korea matters because it said it won’t return to talks and would enlarge its nuclear arsenal as long as U.S. hostility persists. But the latest statement was still attributed to an individual commentator, not a government body, suggesting North Korea may still want to leave room for potential diplomacy with the Biden administration.
“The termination step is a stark reminder of the U.S. hostile policy toward (North Korea) and its shameful double-dealing,” Kim Myong Chol, an international affairs critic, said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. “It is engrossed in confrontation despite its lip-service to dialogue.”
“The U.S. is mistaken, however. It is a serious blunder for it to pressurize (North Korea) by creating asymmetric imbalance in and around the Korean Peninsula as this may lead to the acute and instable situation on the Korean Peninsula now technically at war,” he said.
The United States had previously barred South Korea from developing a missile with a range of longer than 800 kilometers (500 miles) out of concerns about a regional arms race. The range is enough for a South Korean weapon to strike all of North Korea but is short of hitting potential key targets in other neighbors like China and Japan.
Read:South Korea, US discuss joint responses to falling Chinese rocket debris
Some South Korean observers hailed the end of the restrictions as restoring military sovereignty, but others suspected the U.S. intent was to boost its ally’s military capability amid a rivalry with China.
The commentator Kim accused Washington of trying to spark an arms race, thwart North Korean development and deploy intermediate-range missiles targeting countries near North Korea.
The South Korean government said it “prudently watches” North Korea’s reaction, but Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo wouldn’t comment otherwise, since the remarks were attributed to an individual, not an official statement from the North Korean government.
The North Korean statement comes as the Biden administration shapes a new approach on North Korea amid long-dormant talks over the North’s nuclear program. During their summit, Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in said a new U.S. policy review on North Korea “takes a calibrated and practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy” with the North.
Read:China: US should push North Korea diplomacy, not pressure
U.S. officials have suggested Biden would adopt a middle ground policy between his predecessors — Donald Trump’s direct dealings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Barack Obama’s “strategic patience.” Some experts say Biden won’t likely provide North Korea with major sanctions relief unless it takes concrete denuclearization steps first.
The North Korean statement criticized the Biden administration’s review indirectly, saying the new policy was viewed by other countries “as just trickery.”
India's COVID-19 tally crosses 28 million as daily cases fall
India's COVID-19 tally surpassed the 28 million-mark on Monday, reaching 28,047,534 with 152,734 new cases reported in the past 24 hours, said the federal health ministry.
The daily spike of new cases has been falling over the past couple of weeks.
Read: Vietnam finds new virus variant, hybrid of India, UK strains
Besides, as many as 3,128 deaths since Sunday morning took the overall death toll to 329,100.
There are still 2,026,092 active cases in the country, as there was a decrease of 88,416 cases in the past 24 hours. The number of daily active cases has been on the decline over the past few days, after a continuous surge since mid-April.
Read:Vaccine inequality in India sends many falling through gaps
A total of 25,692,342 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country, showed the latest data from the federal health ministry.
Chinese city locks down neighborhood after virus upsurge
The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou shut down a neighborhood and ordered its residents to stay home Saturday for door-to-door coronavirus testing following an upsurge in infections that has rattled authorities.
Guangzhou, a business and industrial center of 15 million people north of Hong Kong, has reported 20 new infections over the past week. The number is small compared with India’s thousands of daily cases but has alarmed Chinese authorities who believed they had the disease under control.
The spread of infections was “fast and strong,” the official Global Times newspaper cited health authorities as saying.
Saturday’s order to stay home applied to residents of five streets in Liwan District in the city center.
Outdoor markets, child care centers and entertainment venues were closed. Indoor restaurant dining was prohibited. Grade schools were told to stop in-person classes.
People in parts of four nearby districts were ordered to limit outdoor activity.
Read:Vietnam finds new virus variant, hybrid of India, UK strains
The city government earlier ordered testing of hundreds of thousands of residents following the initial infections. The government said some 700,000 people had been tested by Wednesday.
China reports a handful of new cases every day but says almost all are believed to be people who were infected abroad. The mainland’s official death toll stands at 4,636 out of 91,061 confirmed cases.
On Saturday, the National Health Commission reported two new locally transmitted cases in Guangzhou and 14 in other parts of the country that it said came from abroad.
Most of the latest infections in Guangzhou are believed to be linked to a 75-year-old woman who was found May 21 to have the variant first identified in India, state media say. Most of the others attended a dinner with her or live together.
That infection spread to the nearby city of Nanshan, where one new confirmed case and two asymptomatic cases were reported Saturday after people from Guangzhou were tested, according to The Global Times.
Vietnam finds new virus variant, hybrid of India, UK strains
Vietnam has discovered a new coronavirus variant that’s a hybrid of strains first found in India and the U.K., the Vietnamese health minister said Saturday.
Nguyen Thanh Long said scientists examined the genetic makeup of the virus that had infected some recent patients, and found the new version of the virus. He said lab tests suggested it might spread more easily than other versions of the virus.
Viruses often develop small genetic changes as they reproduce, and new variants of the coronavirus have been seen almost since it was first detected in China in late 2019. The World Health Organization has listed four global “variants of concern” – the two first found in the U.K. and India, plus ones identified in South Africa and Brazil.
Long says the new variant could be responsible for a recent surge in Vietnam, which has spread to 30 of the country’s 63 municipalities and provinces.
Vietnam was initially a standout success in battling the virus — in early May, it had recorded just over 3,100 confirmed cases and 35 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Read: More states ease lingering virus rules as vaccine rates rise
But in the last few weeks, Vietnam has confirmed more than 3,500 new cases and 12 deaths, increasing the country’s total death toll to 47.
Most of the new transmissions were found in Bac Ninh and Bac Giang, two provinces dense with industrial zones where hundreds of thousands of people work for major companies including Samsung, Canon and Luxshare, a partner in assembling Apple products. Despite strict health regulations, a company in Bac Giang discovered that one fifth of its 4,800 workers had tested positive for the virus.
In Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest metropolis and home to 9 million, at least 85 people have tested positive as part of a cluster at a Protestant church, the Health Ministry said. Worshippers sang and chanted while sitting close together without wearing proper masks or taking other precautions.
Vietnam has since ordered a nationwide ban on all religious events. In major cities, authorities have banned large gatherings, closed public parks and non-essential business including in-person restaurants, bars, clubs and spas.
Vietnam so far has vaccinated 1 million people with AstraZeneca shots. Last week, it sealed a deal with Pfizer for 30 million doses, which are scheduled to be delivered in the third and fourth quarters of this year. It is also in talks with Moderna that would give it enough shots to fully vaccine 80% of its 96 million people.