Tag: NEWS

(Xinhua)08:50, November 26, 2020

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged the international community to heed the needs of women and girls suffering from violence and discrimination.

The global community must continue to build on the momentum we have created to prioritize the voices, experiences and needs of women and girls, the UN chief said in his remarks to a virtual meeting to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which falls on Nov. 25.

We must take into account the needs of women who experience violence, particularly those who face multiple and intersecting forms of violence and discrimination, said the secretary-general.

The UN chief noted that violence against women and girls is a pervasive global human rights challenge, rooted in unequal gender power relations, structural inequality and discrimination.

He said that was the major reason that the United Nations launched the global UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign.

The COVID-19 crisis has further exposed violence against women and girls as a global emergency requiring urgent action, he said. Rates of violence, in particular domestic violence, have dramatically escalated around the world.

Guterres stressed that it is clear that the pandemic has exacerbated risk factors and laid bare the shortcomings of previous efforts to prevent and respond to this shocking emergency.

The UN chief said he has been heartened to see so many governments taking action to address gender-based violence during the pandemic.

Civil society partners and grassroots womens rights organizations have been indispensable in preventing and responding to violence against women and girls in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guterres added.

But, the UN chief said, much work remains to be done.

Millions of women are being pushed further into poverty by the COVID-19 crisis, and all forms of violence against them are rising, he said.

Our priorities must first and foremost include urgent and flexible funding for womens rights organizations, who so often act as first responders during crises, said the secretary-general.

It is critical that services for survivors are regarded as essential and remain open, with adequate resources and measures in place to support health and social services to care for survivors of violence, he said.

Guterres said measures should not only focus on intervening once violence has occurred. They should aim to reduce the risk of violence occurring in the first place.

This includes providing financial and material support to women and households; encouraging positive messaging around gender equality, stereotypes and norms; supporting access to mental health services; and engaging key stakeholders, including women and girls, men and boys, and traditional and faith-based leaders, he added.

This years theme for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!

(Xinhua)08:53, November 26, 2020

BUENOS AIRES, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) — Argentinas government on Wednesday declared three days of national mourning for the death of football legend Diego Armando Maradona, the office of the presidency said.

The President of the Nation will decree three days of national mourning from the day (of his death), according to the statement.

Maradona died Wednesday due to cardiorespiratory arrest at his home in the Tigre district on the northern outskirts of the capital Buenos Aires.

The former star player and coach, most recently of the Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata football team, underwent surgery following a stroke in early November.

On October 30, Maradona celebrated his 60th birthday.

(Xinhua)09:00, November 26, 2020

A woman and a boy wearing face masks are seen in front of a mural in Agartala, the capital city of Indias northeastern state Tripura, on Nov. 25, 2020. Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 60 million on Wednesday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. (Str/Xinhua)

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) — Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 60 million on Wednesday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The global case count reached 60,037,735, with a total of 1,413,325 deaths worldwide as of 12:27 p.m. local time (1727 GMT), the CSSE data showed.

The United States reported the most cases and deaths around the world, which stood at 12,642,245 and 260,591, respectively. India recorded 9,222,216 cases, ranking second in the world. Brazil followed India with 6,118,708 cases and 170,115 deaths, the worlds second largest death toll.

Countries with more than 1.5 million cases also include France, Russia, Spain and Britain, while other countries with over 50,000 deaths include India, Mexico, Britain, Italy and France, according to the CSSE tally.

Global cases topped 40 million on Oct. 19, and hit 50 million on Nov. 8. It took 20 days for the global caseload to jump from 40 million to 50 million, and only 17 days from 50 million to 60 million.

The United States remains the worst-hit nation, accounting for more than 20 percent of global cases.

On Tuesday, the United States identified 172,935 new cases, marking the 22nd consecutive day that the country had reported more than 100,000 new cases.

U.S. medical professionals and experts feared the case number will continue to surge after the Thanksgiving holiday.

(Xinhua)09:05, November 26, 2020

LONDON, Nov. 25(Xinhua) — The coronavirus-related deaths in Britain rose by 696 to 56,533, marking the highest daily death number since May 5, according to official figures released Wednesday.

Another 18,213 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 1,557,007, the data showed.

The figures came as some scientists warned that the British governments plan to relax coronavirus restrictions over Christmas risk throwing fuel on the COVID fire.

If restrictions are changed to allow greater mixing at Christmas then infections will inevitably go up, David Spiegelhalter from the University of Cambridge told Times Radio earlier this week.

Up to three households can get together during a five-day period over Christmas, British Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove announced Tuesday.

According to Gove, three different households can meet in a private home, a place of worship or outdoor public spaces on Dec. 23-27.

However, the groupings must be exclusive, which means people cannot get together with those who are not from other two households.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Monday a tougher tiered system of coronavirus restrictions to replace Englands current lockdown when it ends on Dec. 2.

Johnson said he will announce which areas will fall into which tier later this week, probably on Thursday.

England is currently under a month-long national lockdown, the second of its kind since the coronavirus outbreak in Britain, in a bid to quell the resurgence of coronavirus.

To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States are racing against time to develop coronavirus vaccines.

(Xinhua)09:06, November 26, 2020

NEW YORK, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) — U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpassed 260,000 on Wednesday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

With the national caseload topping 12.6 million, the death toll across the United States rose to 260,322 as of 11:25 a.m. local time (1625 GMT), according to the CSSE data.

New York state reported 34,362 fatalities, at the top of the U.S. state-level death toll list. Texas recorded the second most deaths, standing at 21,245. The states of California, Florida and New Jersey all confirmed more than 16,000 deaths, the tally showed.

States with more than 9,000 fatalities also include Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.

The United States remains the nation hit the worst by the pandemic, with the worlds highest caseload and death toll, accounting for more than 18 percent of global deaths.

The United States reported 2,146 daily deaths associated with COVID-19 on Tuesday, the highest since May, the CSSE chart showed.

An updated model forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington projected a total of 470,974 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by March 1, 2021, based on current projection scenario.

(Peoples Daily Online)09:51, November 13, 2020

The U.S. spread rumors at the United Nations (UN) once again.

During the general debate of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, the U.S. representative once again slandered China over the COVID-19 pandemic, and falsely claimed that Russia and China were constantly developing nuclear weapons, thus seriously threatening international peace and security.

This is obviously the U.S. playing its old trick of a thief crying Stop thief!’”. If the US respected the facts, it would correctly conclude that the US itself is the number one creator of unrest and chaos in global security and stability.

Since Trump took office, the U.S. has wantonly pursued unilateralism under the banner of national security, ignored its own international commitments and frequently broken its promise to seek self-deregulation.

In the field of arms control, the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, dropped out of the Arms Trade Treaty and adopted a nakedly pragmatic attitude towards the multilateral and bilateral arms control treaty system.

With the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) about to expire, the U.S. has been responding passively to Russias repeated requests for a renewal of the agreement.

From September 1, 2019 to March 1, 2020, Russia reduced its nuclear arsenal by 100 warheads, while the U.S. reduced it by only three, according to the U.S. State Department. This sharp contrast is embarrassing and exposes the U.S. lack of sincerity.

There are no longer any restrictions on the deployment of medium-and short-range missiles. The U.S. can be said to be the chief culprit for pushing the world into a dangerous situation, in which the two largest nuclear arsenals may not be bound by treaties for the first time in nearly half a century.

The U.S. is obsessed with militarism and continues to raise its defense budget in order to meet its expanding military ambitions. In 2019, the U.S. military budget topped $700 billion, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the worlds total military expenditure, exceeding the combined military expenditure of the next 10 highest spending countries.

At the beginning of 2020, the U.S. government submitted to Congress a national defense budget of $705.4 billion for fiscal year 2021, of which the amount allocated for modernising nuclear weapons alone was as high as $28.9 billion.

According to a report by the non-governmental organization International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the worlds nine nuclear states spent a total of $72.9 billion on nuclear weapons in 2019, while the U.S. itself spent about $35.4 billion, nearly half of the global total, an increase of nearly 20 percent over the previous year.

It is clear that the US’ military strength has far exceeded what it needs to maintain national security, so why does it continue to borrow money to increase military spending? Why is it still frantically building up its nuclear weapons when it already boasts the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world?

Without doubt, these unilateral actions have fired the starting gun for the international arms race and will aggravate the global strategic imbalance, burying the hidden danger of a possible outbreak of conflicts.

In addition to being a rule breaker and panic instigator, the U.S. has also earned the well-deserved title of war lover. In its more than 240 years of history, the country has not been engaged in a war for only 16 years, thus, it can be called the most belligerent country in the history of the world.

The US can find any reason to launch a war. Even Trump has acknowledged that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, the reason the US waged a war there in the first place.

Since 2001, U.S. military operations against Iraq, Libya, Syria and other countries have killed more than 800,000 people and displaced tens of millions more. The United States is selectively blind over such tragedies.

While pretending to express deep regret, the U.S. wantonly went to war under the guise of helping and rescuing the local people. However, it is its so-called rescue that has pushed the stable lives of innocent civilians into an abyss from which they cannot emerge.

This Pandoras Box that has been opened by the U.S. contains yet more threats: positioning China and Russia as strategic competitors and reverting to the Cold War mentality; pursuing double standards and political manipulation on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation; deploying anti-missile systems in the Asia-Pacific and Central and Eastern Europe to upset the strategic balance…

Peace and development are the themes of this era. Against the backdrop of building a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation and a community with a shared future for mankind, the U.S. is bent on pursuing its own absolute security and strengthening its military hegemony.

With other countries so restless, can the U.S. really call this world peace?

(Xinhua)14:00, November 10, 2020

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) — U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, sending shockwaves through Washington.

Mark Esper has been terminated, Trump tweeted. I would like to thank him for his service.

The announcement came only days after a Pentagon spokesman said Esper has no plans to resign, nor has he been asked to submit a letter of resignation.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, reportedly called Esper to give him a heads-up that the presidents tweet was going to be sent out.

In a letter to Trump on Monday, Esper said he accepts the presidents decision to replace him as he serves the country in deference to the Constitution, while stressing his efforts to keep the Pentagon out of politics.

PUBLIC SPLIT

Esper, 56, began to lead the U.S. Department of Defense in mid-2019 after serving as secretary of the Army.

During his tenure at the Pentagon, Esper played a major role in implementing the Trump administrations national security policies and mobilizing military resources to help the country address the COVID-19 pandemic. However, he was at odds with the White House on several occasions over domestic issues.

This summer, when demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice swept across the country and Trump threatened to deploy active-duty troops to respond to violence arising from the events, Esper held a press conference in Pentagon making clear his opposition to the idea.

The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations, Esper said in June. We are not in one of those situations now.

Recently, Esper reportedly helped lawmakers on Capitol Hill craft legislation to pull the names of Confederate leaders from military bases, after the national reckoning over police brutality, racism, and slavery, despite public opposition from Trump.

Nancy Pelosi, top Congressional Democrat, said in a statement that it is concerning that reports show that this firing was an act of retribution, arguing that the move could put the countrys national security at risk.

A flurry of other Democrats, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, also lashed out at the firing of Esper and its timing.

Democrat and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has declared victory for the 2020 presidential election, while sitting President Trump hasnt conceded and is pushing for legal challenges.

In the national security community, it is well known that periods of presidential transition leave our country exposed to unique threats, Smith said in a statement. It is imperative that the Pentagon remain under stable, experienced leadership.

NEW CHIEF

Trump tweeted on Monday that Christopher Miller, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will be the Pentagons acting chief effective immediately.

Miller, 55, was sworn in as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, aligned under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in August this year. Most recently, he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism.

Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, tweeted he is looking forward to working with him to ensure that these priorities remain paramount and to working with President Trump to maintain stability at the Pentagon, particularly as we work to enact the 60th annual NDAA.

Inhofe was referring to the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill authorizing appropriations for fiscal year 2021 and setting forth policies for the departments programs and activities.

James Mattis, the Trump administrations first defense secretary, resigned in late 2018 over policy disagreements with the president.

In May 2019, Trump announced intention to tap Patrick Shanahan, then acting defense secretary, to formally lead the department but the decision was reversed a month later when Shanahan said he was withdrawing. Days later, the president said he would name Esper for the post in a permanent capacity. The nomination quickly passed the Senate with a bipartisan support.

Before joining the Trump administration, Esper was the vice president for government relations at Raytheon, a major U.S. defense contractor.

(Peoples Daily Online)13:34, November 17, 2020

China’s infrastructure saw rapid development in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, during which a large number of self-developed technologies and equipment contributed to faster infrastructure construction.

Over the past five years, a number of major projects such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Beijing Daxing International Airport were put into operation.

The Kunlun, a 1,000-tonne bridge girder erection machine (Photo/Chinanews.com)

By the end of this year, the country’s high-speed rail mileage and highway network are expected to reach 38,000 km and 155,000 km respectively, and the number of civilian transport airports are expected to hit 242.

Recently, the world’s first 1,000-tonne bridge girder erection machine was put into use in southeast China’s Fujian province, erecting box girders on the construction site of the Meizhou Bay cross-sea bridge of the Fuzhou-Xiamen high-speed railway. The Kunlun is capable of erecting a 1,000-tonne box girder with a maximum span of 40 meters.

The mega-machine was developed and manufactured by China Railway Construction Corporation Limited, a large construction and engineering company under the direct supervision of China’s State Council.

The Kunlun can reduce girder erection costs by about 20 percent and increase speed by about 30 percent, said Wang Bo, a project leader of the high-speed railway project, adding that the mechanical giant will provide technical support and guarantees for the country’s high-speed trains, which are expected to travel at above 400km/h in the future.

On Nov. 9, an 18,000-ton bridge section was rotated into position during the construction of an overpass over the Xinxiang-Yanzhou railway in Jining, east China’s Shandong province, marking a new breakthrough in the country’s overpass construction.

According to Zhang Zhihua, a leader of the project undertaken by China Railway 25th Bureau Group Co., Ltd., the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) was applied during the project to ensure the accurate positioning of the rotating body and the pier.

The BDS outperforms GPS in terms of signal strength and measurement accuracy, better guaranteeing the project’s safety, said Liu Chengqi, chief engineer of the project.

As a major innovation, China’s home-made and independently operated BDS reached a new level during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Since November 2017, China has successfully launched 30 satellites, making it the third country in the world to independently own a global navigation satellite system.

The application of BDS has provided a more efficient means of constructing transportation infrastructure in the country, the chief engineer noted.

On Oct. 30, China’s first tunnel across the Yellow River was drilled by a gigantic Chinese-made shield tunneling machine in Jinan, capital of Shandong province. With a total length of 4.76 km, the tunnel contains two levels of highway and rail transit.

As the country’s widest shield tunnel for both rail and road transport, it serves as a shield tunnel beneath a “hanging river,” as the riverbed of this section of the Yellow River sits above downtown Jinan.

In recent years, China has made remarkable progress in independently manufacturing shield tunneling machines, thanks to efforts of leading manufacturers such as China Railway Engineering Equipment Group Co., Ltd. and China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corporation Limited (CRCHI).

According to statistics, the country produces about 500 sets of shield tunneling machines each year, with an annual output value of about 30 billion yuan (about $4.3 billion) and a net profit of about 5 billion yuan, given an average unit price of 60 million yuan.

By 2035, the total length of China’s railway tracks will reach about 200,000 km, including 70,000 km of high-speed railway, according to a recent outline on China’s railway development in the new era, said CRCHI chairman Liu Feixiang.

CRCHI will continue to develop new shield tunneling machines to enable China to move from being a big manufacturer of shield tunneling machines to a major innovator, Liu added.