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General election held with caution in Singapore amid pandemic

By WangLili (Xinhua)15:04, July 10, 2020

SINGAPORE, July 10 (Xinhua) — Twenty minutes prior to the opening of the polling station at the Dunearn Secondary School in northwestern part of Singapore, some 20 voters have already formed a queue all wearing face masks and staying one-meter distance.

This is one of the 1,100 polling stations island-wide to cater for 2.65 million eligible voters from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Friday. Conducted amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the general election is different from previous ones with precautionary measures taken and paramount issues to tackle.

Most of the voters in the line are elderly, as Singapores Elections Department (ELD) has allotted the time slots from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. to the seniors aged 65 and above, some of whom came with walking sticks or on wheelchairs.

Sherwin Chong, 36, also turned up, for he is in the government service and needs to work at the recommended voting time band even though Friday is a public holiday, so that his colleagues may rotate and cast their votes.

After temperature checks, he was directed into the polling area, which is set up in the school canteen dining area. Besides red markings on the floor to remind voters of social distancing, there are also yellow stickers with numbers on to indicate the voting procedures.

Chong handed in his identity card and polling card to the polling officer to verify and operate the e-registration, pulling down his mask briefly to make his face visible. He then sanitized his hands with hand sanitizers and put on disposable gloves before receiving the ballot paper. He went to the polling booth afterwards to mark his ballot paper and dropped it in the ballot box.

At the polling booth, voters may use their own pen or a new self-inking pen, which allows them to easily mark an X for their choices.

Quite a number of preventive measures are put in place and the voting is well-organized, taking me five or 10 minutes, said Chong, who has taken part in the general election for the third time.

Voters under 65 years of age are advised to head to the ballot box from 12:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The last hour from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. is set for voters on compulsory Stay-Home Notice or medical certificate for acute respiratory infection, or are having a fever. COVID-19 patients and voters who are on Quarantine Order for COVID-19 are not allowed to vote.

Besides, 6,570 overseas voters may vote in 10 overseas polling stations worldwide.

As of 12:00 noon, 840,000 voters, or 31 percent of the total, have already casted votes, ELD said.

According to ELD, cleaners are deployed at the polling station to clean items and areas such as the self-inking pens and polling booths. In addition, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., these polling equipment will be sanitized after each use by voters, and the election officials will enhance their gear of surgical masks and gloves to isolation gowns, N95 masks and surgical gloves.

Voters were also very careful, especially the elderly who were more vulnerable to the deadly virus. Some wore plastic face shields above their face masks, some wore their own gloves or brought their own pens.

As of Thursday noon, the total confirmed cases in the country stood at 45,423 since the first case recorded on Jan. 23.

Amid the spread of the virus, Singapores President Halimah Yacob dissolved the parliament and issue the Writ of Election on June 23. For this years election, the lion city is divided into 14 single-member constituencies and 17 group representation constituencies. A total of 191 representatives from 11 political parties and one independent candidate joined in the competition for 93 seats of the parliament on June 30. The polling day falls on a cloudy Friday after nine-day campaigning and a cooling day on July 9.

Singapore Prime Minister and Secretary-General of the Peoples Action Party Lee Hsien Loong told reporters earlier that this is a general election for the most important issues concerning the country at the moment of the crisis, which is the most serious for the city state since its independence in 1965.

For Chong, as some of his fellow Singaporeans lose jobs as companies hit by the coronavirus lay off employees, the most outstanding issue is to ensure Singaporeans maintain their jobs or be given new employment opportunities once jobless so as to tide over the crisis towards the future.

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U.S. politician spreads “political virus” by stigmatizing China

By YeZhu (Peoples Daily Online)15:53, July 08, 2020

White House Trade and Manufacturing Policy Director Peter Navarro recently said in an interview that China produced the coronavirus in a biological lab and used it as a weapon.

He added, They deliberately allowed Chinese nationals to come to the United States, Italy, and everywhere in between, who were infected, while they were locking down their own transportation network.

Facts have proven that he is lying. On Jan. 23, Wuhan temporarily suspended outbound transportation. Back then, there was only one confirmed case in the U.S. Between Jan. 24 and April 8, there were no commercial airplanes or trains leaving Wuhan for other Chinese cities or foreign countries. However, on April 8, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. soared from two digits to 400,000.

In 2019, U.S. media reported that Navarro had fabricated an expert named Ron Vara, which is actually an anagram of his own name, to tarnish Chinas image in his book. This farce, together with the “political virus” that he has been spreading around the world, has been exposed, and made him an international laughing stock.

“Let us be really clear about this: most, if not all cases came from Europe. Most countries are ahead of the curve now except the U.S., which thankfully, is now in quarantine from the rest of the world. Sort your life out,” commented a Twitter user under a post from Navarro.

At present, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has topped 3 million, with the death toll hitting nearly 130,000. But the staggering number of lost lives still cannot wake up some people pretending to be asleep.

Like Navarro, they have never stopped shifting the blame to China, and should take responsibility for the spike in confirmed cases and the failure of the U.S. to bring the virus under control.

Recently, there has been increasing evidence to prove that the novel coronavirus may not have originated in China. Virologists from Spain said they detected COVID-19 in samples taken from wastewater collected in March 2019, nine months before the disease was first discovered in China. Italy and Spain have also reported findings from wastewater treatment plants before the first official cases were known.

In the face of such facts, the world can now get a clearer picture of who is lying. When the origin of the virus was still unclear, China discovered the virus and reported it to the world, sounding the alarm.

China has always believed that tracing the origin of the virus is a scientific matter, even as U.S. politicians continued to tarnish China’s image and scientists around the world released research results proving that the virus had existed before it was first discovered.

It has taken effective prevention strategies to contain the spread of the virus at home, promoted international cooperation and provided assistance for other countries to cope with the pandemic.

History will eventually prove who is responsible in front of the common enemy of mankind and who has shown no humanity or conscience.

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White House pushes to reopen schools as U.S. COVID-19 cases top 3 mln

(Xinhua)09:02, July 09, 2020

WASHINGTON, July 8 (Xinhua) — White House on Wednesday continued to push states to reopen schools in the fall as the countrys COVID-19 cases passed 3 million with over 132,000 deaths.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened in his tweets to cut off federal funding for schools if they do not resume in-person learning this fall and criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for their very tough expensive guidelines for opening schools.

During a press briefing of the White House coronavirus task force that took place a few hours later at the Education Department, Vice President Mike Pence said the CDC would issue new guidance on reopening schools next week.

We dont want the guidance from CDC to be a reason why schools dont open, Pence said. I think that every American, every American knows that we can safely reopen our schools.

Remember its guidance, its not requirements, and its purpose is to facilitate the reopening and keeping open the schools in this country, CDC Director Robert Redfield said.

On Tuesday, Trump said at a White House meeting with government officials and school administrators were very much going to put pressure on governors and everyone else to open the schools.

Our country has got to get back, and its got to get back as soon as possible, and I dont consider our country coming back if the schools are closed, he said.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Monday that international students may have to leave the United States if their universities switch to online-only courses for the fall 2020 semester, warning that otherwise they will risk violating their visa status.

The escalation of the Trump administrations drive to reopen schools came when the countrys COVID-19 infections broke 3 million cases and outbreaks continue to rage in new hot spots in the South and West.

The United States set a record for the most cases reported in a single day — 60,021 on Tuesday.

In 35 states, the rates of new cases keep increasing, threatening to reverse the progress made during weeks of painful shutdowns and stay-at-home orders, according to a report by CNN.

The CNN report described the speed of COVID-19 spreading in the United States as ferocious as six months ago, no one thought the virus existed in the country.

The first reported case came on January 21. Within 99 days, 1 million Americans became infected. It took just 43 days after that to reach 2 million cases, it sid. And 28 days later, the US reached 3 million cases of the novel coronavirus Wednesday.

A widely cited mortality model from the University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projected on Tuesday that U.S. deaths would reach 208,000 by Nov. 1, with the outbreak expected to gain new momentum heading into the fall.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the countrys top infectious disease expert, said Monday that the status of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country is really not good.

However, Trump on Tuesday rebuked Faucis assessment, saying the country is in a good place.

Weve done a good job, the president said at an interview on Gray Television. I think we are going to be in two, three, four weeks, by the time we next speak, I think were going to be in very good shape.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration officially submitted its notification of withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) to United Nations secretary-general and Congress.

The United States will leave the WHO on July 6, 2021, and currently it owes the organization more than 200 million U.S. dollars in assessed contributions, according to the WHO website.

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Trudeau concerned by reported U.S. threat of tariffs on Canadian aluminum, steel

(Xinhua)09:04, July 09, 2020

OTTAWA, July 8 (Xinhua) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that he is concerned about reports that the United States is considering reimposing tariffs on Canadian aluminum and possibly steel.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa, Trudeau said he looks forward to congratulating U.S. President Donald Trump on the coming into force of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), also known as CUSMA in Canada.

The agreement officially came into force on July 1, replacing the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Trudeau did not travel to Washington Wednesday to attend a meeting with Trump and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador marking the launch of the new North American trade deal.

Trudeau stays in Ottawa this week for scheduled cabinet meetings and the long-planned sitting of Parliament, according to the Canadian Prime Ministers Office.

Trudeau told reporters that its really important that at a time of economic strain and stress, Canada continues to have access to the worlds most important market and this is good for Canadian workers and Canadian jobs right across the country.

At the same time, we are concerned about the threat of extra tariffs on aluminum and possibly steel. This is something that again is a little difficult to understand because the United States relies heavily on imports of Canadian aluminum, in particular, for their domestic manufacturing capacity, he said.

Trudeau said the United States doesnt produce nearly enough aluminum to be able to cover its needs.

Canadian officials are continuing to push very hard on encouraging the United States not to move forward on tariffs that dont have any justification and will have a negative impact, Trudeau added.

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83-year-old craftsman in Xi’an uses bamboo to create movable terracotta warriors and chariots

(Peoples Daily Online)11:08, December 11, 2020

With more than 900 bamboo strips, Zhang Tianwei, an 83-year-old craftsman in Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi province, created a special kite featuring a horse-drawn chariot resembling the chariots at the famous Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi’an, CCTV.com reported on Dec. 5.

The four horses pulling the chariot and the soldier driving can move with great agility. With the help of the 192 terracotta army warriors in 48 rows, the kite is swept into the sky along with four horses and a soldier driving a chariot.

(Screenshot from CCTV News)

Using 920 bamboo strips to make the “bronze chariot and horses,” which has more than 3,000 lashing points and weighs 500 grams, the creation took Zhang a total of four months.

Zhang is the founder and an inheritor of his kite-making skills, a project of the intangible cultural heritage of Shaanxi province. He has been making dynamic kites since 1986.

“My only wish is that more people will like kites such as these,” said Zhang, who disclosed that he hopes to teach more people his kite-making skills and that he will continue to innovate new works.

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Third Confucius Institute opens in Chile

(Xinhua)13:25, December 11, 2020

SANTIAGO, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) — Chilean and Chinese officials on Thursday inaugurated the Confucius Institute at southern Chiles La Frontera University (UFRO), the third one of its kind in the South American country.

Established in conjunction with the Communication University of China (CUC), the institute aims to bring communities in this part of Chile closer to Chinas culture and language, and strengthen the bonds between the two nations.

As a country, we want to be at the forefront, and from the south of Chile, we want our students to have the opportunity to get to know Chinas culture, art and language, Eduardo Hebel Weiss, the rector of the UFRO, said during a virtual ceremony in the city of Temuco in the La Araucania region, some 600 km south of the capital Santiago.

The ceremony also commemorated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Chile and China, with the participation of representatives from both universities and the Chinese International Education Foundation, as well as diplomats from their respective embassies.

China is the most populous country in the world, and brims with millenary cultural wealth and extensive economic development, Hebel said.

Learning the Chinese language will allow the regions youth to have the opportunity to explore an unprecedented future, enrich their vision of the world, and bring two cultures that are at once so distant and so close closer together, given the connected world in which we live in today, Hebel added.

The new Confucius Institute will be a window in the south to Chinese culture, in order to carry out academic, scientific and cultural exchange, said Hebel, whose university began to teach the Chinese language in 2013.

Likewise, Liao Xiangzhong, president of the CUC, said he hoped the Confucius Institute of the UFRO will become an important platform for academic cooperation and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

To that end, China will provide the most sophisticated Chinese teaching resources, including teachers, to meet the demand for learning Chinese at the university itself and its surrounding communities, Liao said.

Bilateral exchanges in the political, economic, cultural and educational realms have made evident the urgent need to improve mutual understanding and expand cooperation through communication between both hemispheres, even more so in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Liao.

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Disney rolls out ambitious plans in global streaming expansion

(Xinhua)17:03, December 11, 2020

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) — Walt Disney Co. on Thursday rolled out ambitious plans to release a slate of new titles in the coming years of its global streaming expansion.

The U.S. entertainment giant will release approximately 10 Star Wars series, 10 Marvel series, 15 Disney live action, Disney Animation and Pixar series, as well as 15 all-new Disney live action, Disney Animation and Pixar features on its streaming service, Disney+, over the next few years, the company announced at its 2020 Investor Day.

The company has said it plans to release at least 100 new titles per year on Disney+.

As of Dec. 2, the companys portfolio of direct-to-consumer (DTC) services has exceeded 137 million global paid subscriptions, including 11.5 million ESPN+ subscribers, 38.8 million Hulu subscribers and 86.8 million Disney+ subscribers since its launch in November 2019, the entertainment giant said.

Disney now expects its streaming services to hit 300-350 million total subscriptions by fiscal 2024, driven primarily by a significant increase in content output, it said.

The tremendous success weve achieved across our unique portfolio of streaming services, with more than 137 million subscriptions worldwide, has bolstered our confidence in our acceleration toward a DTC-first business model, Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Chapek said in a release.

With our amazing creative teams and our ever-growing collection of the high-quality branded entertainment that consumers want, we believe we are incredibly well positioned to achieve our long-term goals, he said.

Disney also shared new details of its new general entertainment content brand Star, which will be included as part of Disney+ in select international markets.

Disney has said the Star brand will serve as a home to thousands of hours of television and movies from Disneys creative studios, including Disney Television Studios, FX, 20th Century Studios, 20th Television, and more, enhanced by the addition of local programming from the regions where available.

Disney+ will be updated to include the Star brand on Feb. 23, 2021 in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The streaming service will continue its global rollout, now with Star, in new markets beginning with Singapore on Feb. 23, 2021, followed by Eastern Europe, South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong later in 2021, according to the company.

Seemingly an unstoppable entertainment juggernaut, Disney has dominated the global box office in recent years. The company grossed around 13 billion U.S. dollars in the worldwide box office last year. As the COVID-19 pandemic that has devastated the global film industry continues, Hollywood studios are trying to survive the crisis with new movie-release patterns.

Different with another major Hollywood giant, Warner Bros. Pictures Group, which announced earlier this month it would release all its 2021 films on streaming service and in theaters at the same time, Disney will premier some blockbusters in theaters exclusively in the coming years, while others will move online.

During the Investor Day presentation, the executives of the companys divisions shared details about their productions.

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced an impressive number of exciting Disney+ series and new feature films destined to expand the Star Wars galaxy like never before.

The new Star Wars titles announced for Disney+ include Ahsoka, Rangers of the New Republic, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, The Bad Batch, Star Wars: Visions, Lando, The Acolyte and A Droid Story.

The next feature film in the Star Wars franchise, to be released in December 2023, will be Rogue Squadron, directed by Patty Jenkins of the Wonder Woman franchise. The story will follow a new generation of starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy.

We have a vast and expansive timeline in the Star Wars mythology spanning over 25,000 years of history in the galaxy — with each era being a rich resource for storytelling, said Kennedy.

Now with Disney+, we can explore limitless story possibilities like never before and fulfill the promise that there is truly a Star Wars story for everyone, she added.

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Action comedy Bath Buddy leads Chinese box office

(Xinhua)13:40, December 12, 2020

BEIJING, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) — Chinese action comedy Bath Buddy topped the Chinese box office chart Friday, raking in 46.85 million yuan (7.15 million U.S. dollars) on its first day of screening, according to data compiled by the China Movie Data Information Network.

Romantic fantasy The End of Endless Love ranked second on the daily box office chart, grossing about 14.57 million yuan Friday.

With a young and popular cast, and with popular Chinese romance author Guo Jingming as a screenwriter, the film has generated a total of 232 million yuan since its Dec. 4 debut.

Coming in third was Japanese animation Doraemon: Nobitas New Dinosaur, which earned about 6.74 million yuan on Friday.

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2,200-yr-old artifacts unearthed in south China

(Xinhua)15:02, December 12, 2020

GUANGZHOU, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) — More than 2,500 pieces of cultural relics dating back up to 2,200 years were unearthed in Guangzhou, capital of south Chinas Guangdong Province, local authorities said Friday.

Archaeologists with the Guangzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology have completed the excavation work at a key site in the city, which has been a commercial hub for more than 1,000 years.

The unearthed objects mainly include pottery, porcelain, bronze and iron wares, dating back from the Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 220) to the early 20th century, according to Cheng Hao, an official with the institute.

Remains of 196 pits, 57 wells, 43 pools and three roads were also among the discoveries. The ruins of a large Song Dynasty (960-1279) building belonging to the upper class was another highlight of the excavation, Cheng said.

The excavation outcomes are of great significance for understanding the historical and geographical changes of Guangzhous urban areas, Cheng added.

The excavation drive, which kicked off in May, spanned an area of some 2,400 square meters, Guangzhous largest in terms of the scale in recent years, according to Cheng.

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Chinese envoy calls for prudent approach to issue of Syrias chemical weapons

(Xinhua)13:52, December 12, 2020

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) — A Chinese envoy on Friday called for a prudent approach to the issue of Syrias chemical weapons.

All parties should approach the issue of Syrias chemical weapons with openness, transparency and inclusiveness, and respect facts and science, said Geng Shuang, Chinas deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

In recent years, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has released a number of reports on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. Many independent experts have raised doubts from a technical point of view and pointed out contradictions in these reports, to which the OPCW should come up with professional, science-based and convincing responses, he told a Security Council meeting.

China opposes jumping into conclusions or even rushing into action when there are still many question marks, he said.

Some Security Council members simply refuse to listen to divergent views, hell-bent on pursuing pressure and attribution. They would label anyone who begs to differ as undermining the authority of the OPCW. Such conduct is utterly irresponsible, unconstructive, and politically driven, he said.

All parties should encourage the OPCW to maintain good communication and cooperation with the Syrian government and take an objective view of Syrias efforts, said Geng.

Recently, the Syrian government and the OPCW Technical Secretariat held their 23rd round of technical consultations, during which all the outstanding issues regarding the initial declaration were discussed, among which three were closed. Syria once again expressed its readiness to maintain communication and cooperation with the Technical Secretariat. The constructive attitude of Syria and the outcomes of their exchanges should be recognized, he said.

All states parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) should help bring the issue of accountability for the use of chemical weapons back to the framework of the convention, and safeguard the authority and integrity of the convention, said Geng.

Some countries have weaponized the OPCW, the implementing body for the CWC, to undermine and suppress other countries, substituting vote for dialogue, which leads to deep divisions, he said.

The working methods of the Investigation and Identification Team whose inception is enabled by those countries are opaque, and its reports do not reflect the integrity of the chain of evidence and therefore highly controversial, he said.

Pending a solution to these problems, those countries, during the 94th session of the Executive Council of the OPCW, once again pushed for a vote on the draft decision on Syrias chemical weapons issue. Such an approach is not constructive at all. If this is allowed to continue over time, the work of the OPCW is set to be more politicized, he warned.

China calls on OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias and the Technical Secretariat to take steps to promote dialogue and communication among states parties to the CWC and conduct their work in an impartial and independent manner, return to the tradition of consensus-based decision-making and truly safeguard the authority of the convention and the long-term interests of the OPCW, he said.