Day: August 14, 2020

(CGTN)11:05, June 28, 2020

During a recent interview with a group of six European newspapers, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Europe needs to reassess its relationship with the United States if the U.S. is not willing to shoulder its responsibilities as a global power.

Analysts see it as a sign of a reversal in the U.S. relations with its traditional European allies such as Germany.

We grew up in the certain knowledge that the United States wanted to be a world power, the German chancellor said. Should the U.S. now wish to withdraw from that role of its own free will, we would have to reflect on that very deeply.

U.S. President Donald Trump has had testy relations with Merkel in the past.

The U.S. president said on June 15 that he will halve the number of U.S. troops in Germany because Berlin is delinquent in contributions to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and treats the United States badly on trade.

In the interview, Merkel said the U.S. military presence in central Europe was in the U.S. own interest.

American troops in Germany help to protect not only Germany and the European part of NATO but also the interests of the United States of America, the chancellor said.

Talking of Germanys military spending, Merkel said: We in Germany know that we have to spend more on defense; we have achieved considerable increases in recent years, and we will continue on that path to enhance our military capabilities.

Merkel has refused Trumps invitation for a proposed G7 summit in Washington, saying that her personal participation cannot be ensured because of the pandemic situation.

Meanwhile, Merkel also mentioned relations with the UK, saying that it will have to live with the consequences of Boris Johnson ditching Theresa Mays plan to maintain close economic ties with the EU after Brexit.

We need to let go of the idea that it is for us to define what Britain should want, Merkel said, adding that it is for Britain to define and the EU27 will respond appropriately.

(CGTN)14:15, June 28, 2020

Florida and four other states recorded daily highs for cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, highlighting the worsening spread of the coronavirus in parts of the U.S. South and West, prompting some officials to roll back their reopening plans.

Florida on Saturday morning reported 9,585 new infections in the last 24 hours, a record for a second day, while Arizona recorded 3,591 new cases of COVID-19, matching its prior record on Tuesday.

Nevada disclosed 1,099 cases, double its previous record, while South Carolina and Georgia reported 1,604 and 1,990 new infections, respectively, also marking new daily highs.

The surge in cases has been most pronounced in a handful of Southern and Western states that reopened earlier and more aggressively, serving as a warning to the potentially illusory nature of any perceived progress in controlling the virus.

So far, there are more than 2.5 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and over 125,000 Americans have died of COVID-19, the highest known death toll in the world.

On Friday, as the United States recorded its largest daily increase in cases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, said the governments current strategy for finding and isolating infected people was not working, partly due to significant asymptomatic spread.

The worsening contagion in some parts of the United States has created a split-screen effect, with New York and its neighboring Northeastern states, which were hit hardest initially, reporting declining cases and forging ahead with reopening plans.

Kami Kim, director of the Division of Infectious Disease and International Medicine at the University of South Florida, said her states leaders claimed victory too soon after lockdowns were lifted starting in early May, while giving off conflicting messages on face coverings by not wearing masks themselves.

It was just complete denial by a huge swath of the politicians, she said, predicting that the state may need to shut down again. Unfortunately, our community still isnt taking it very seriously. People arent wearing masks.

In a reversal of his early moves to relax restrictions, Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday ordered bars across the state to close and required restaurants to limit indoor seating, acknowledging that in hindsight he had opened bars too soon.

Esmeralda Moya, the mayor of Galena Park, Texas, a community of 10,000 people east of Houston, instituted an overnight curfew starting on Saturday night at 10 p.m. Moya said she was acting after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo on Friday raised a health warning system for the county to its highest possible threat level, a sign people should shelter at home.

Florida, another state that reopened its economy relatively quickly, told bar owners on Friday to immediately stop serving alcohol on their premises.

Yet despite skyrocketing case numbers, both Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have not bowed to pressure to issue statewide mandates on wearing masks, opting to leave that decision to local municipalities. Both Abbott and DeSantis are Republican, the same party as President Donald Trump.

Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College in Houston, said he fears that daily cases in the Houston area could more than triple to 4,000 by mid-July, making it the main global hot spot by then.

We need to implement more aggressive social distancing measures now, the renowned vaccine scientist said.

At a briefing on Friday, DeSantis blamed the spike in infections on young people interacting more in the last few weeks, adding that they faced a lower risk of dying than older people. Lending support to that view, Florida on Saturday reported 24 additional deaths, well off peaks in April when the elderly made up a larger proportion of cases.

But DeSantis also acknowledged that those young people, even if they dont become hospitalized themselves, could transmit the virus to the elderly or people with conditions like diabetes which make them susceptible to severe outcomes with COVID-19.

Earlier this week, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut imposed a 14-day mandatory quarantine on travelers from states with high infection rates like Florida, where some 13 percent of those tested on Friday came back positive.

In a disclosure meant to highlight that risk, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a news release on Saturday saying he had ordered health officials to investigate an outbreak tied to a drive-in high school graduation ceremony in Chappaqua, New York.

One of the attendees at the ceremony had recently traveled to Florida and subsequently tested positive, Cuomo said in the release. Since then, an additional four individuals also at the ceremony tested positive and are self-isolating, he said.

(China Daily)08:05, August 08, 2019

Chinas film regulator has suspended participation of mainland movies and personnel in the 56th Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei in November amid rising tensions across the Taiwan Straits.

China Film News, a magazine published by the China Film Administration, reported the news on Wednesday without giving any reason for the suspension.

Chen Xing, a Taiwan studies professor at Beijing Union University, said the move was due not only to Taiwan independence remarks during last years award ceremony at the festival, but also to the recent worsening of cross-Straits relations.

The organizing committee of the festival in Taipei responded by letter on Wednesday that it was disappointed by the news but the event would go on as scheduled.

A total of 148 feature films have been registered with the festival this year, compared with last years 228, according to the organizing committee.

The Golden Horse Awards are one of three major film honors in the Chinese-speaking region 鈥?the two others are the Golden Rooster Awards on the mainland and the Hong Kong Film Awards. Mainland participants have been big winners since they began attending the event in 1996. Last year, they won about 60 percent of the awards.

However, last years Golden Horse Awards ceremony was overshadowed by Taiwan independence remarks, triggering discontent from mainland participants and anger from the mainland public.

Documentary director Fu Yue, the best documentary award winner last year, said in her acceptance speech that her biggest dream is that our country鈥?referring to Taiwan 鈥?can be regarded as an independent entity.

Mainland actress and jury chair Gong Li later refused to join Taiwan-born director Ang Lee, head of last years executive committee, onstage to present the award for best feature film, a move many interpreted as a protest.

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said in November after the event that film industry professionals on both sides of the Straits should oppose such pro-independence acts and remarks.

He said the festival is a platform for film professionals across the Straits to communicate with each other, but some political forces made use of the occasion to create political trouble.

The suspension follows a recent travel policy change. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced last week that the issuance of permits for mainland individuals to travel to Taiwan will be suspended starting in August due to the current cross-Straits relations.

Ma said last week the Democratic Progressive Partys Taiwan independence secessionist activities led to the suspension of individual travel permits to Taiwan.

They have been constantly fomenting hostility toward the mainland and creating confrontation across the Straits, which destroyed the foundation and conditions for such travel, he said.

(Xinhua)10:56, August 08, 2019

Pakistan on Wednesday informed India to withdraw its high commissioner after the country decided to downgrade diplomatic relations and suspend trade ties with India during a national security committee meeting amid recent Kashmir tensions.

Prior to the expel notification, a Pakistani Foreign Ministry official told Xinhua that the ministry has been told to cancel all the commitments with the Indian embassy.

The Indian government has also been informed that Pakistan will not be sending its high commissioner-designate to India, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Pakistan adopted a series of measures during the national security committee meeting on Wednesday against India in the wake of Indias revocation of the special status to Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Meanwhile, the countrys parliament passed a resolution against the Indian decision and the recent surge in unprovoked firing and shelling by Indian forces along the Line of Control, the de-facto border between the two countries in the disputed area.

Addressing the joint session here, Fakhar Imam, chairman of the Pakistans National Assemblys Committee on Kashmir, said that Kashmir is an internationally recognized dispute on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, and the Indian move posed a great threat to peace, security and stability in South Asia.

The joint parliament session also called upon the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation to convene an extraordinary high level session on the Indian move, and asked the international community to stop India from undertaking the actions that may lead to a dangerous escalation to affect not only South Asia but the entire world.

During the national security committee meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, senior cabinet ministers and military officers discussed the situation inside Indian-controlled Kashmir and along the Line of Control.

Khan also directed all diplomatic channels to be activated to highlight human rights violations in India-controlled Kashmir and directed the military to continue its vigilance and be prepared to face any aggression.

Pakistan also decided to take the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.

Talking to the local media, the countrys Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that his country will take the issue to the UN Security Council, and will also take friendly countries into confidence regarding the dispute.

Local reports said that Khan has made a telephone conversation to his British counterpart Boris Johnson. However, the details of the conversation were not revealed yet.

(Xinhua)07:15, August 09, 2019

BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) — The international community has a fair judgment on who is breaking international rules and who is upholding them, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Thursday.

Hua made the statement when responding to a question regarding U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Espers China-smearing remarks made during his recent visit to Japan, saying Chinas military activity and calculated strategy of predatory economics violate the international rules-based order.

Some people in the U.S. are attaching various labels to China out of Cold-War mentality and zero-sum game mindset while turning a blind eye to the basic facts. Such move is unfair, immoral and ill-intentioned, said Hua.

For a start, China is committed to peaceful development and a defense policy that is defensive in nature. China is a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and an upholder of the international order. In contrast, the U.S. owns hundreds of military bases worldwide, deploys hundreds of thousands of troops outside its own territory and has fought many wars in other countries, said Hua.

Being such a country that deploys troops and shows off force all over the world, the U.S. has absolutely no reason or right to criticize other countries, she said.

Secondly, China pursues the greater good and shared interests when conducting mutually beneficial cooperation with other developing countries, said Hua. We do our best to provide assistance to them with no political strings attached. Our cooperation has effectively advanced local economic and social development and improved peoples lives. It is warmly welcomed by developing countries.

Hua again stressed that the world knows clearly who is breaking international rules and who is upholding them, citing a Chinese saying that goes Stand upright and your shadow will not be crooked to make her point.