TIG Post

Tag: China

  • Irans deputy health minister has tested positive for coronavirus

    A Chinese court has sentenced Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai to 10 years in jail for “illegally providing intelligence overseas”.

    Mr. Gui, who holds Swedish citizenship, has been in and out of Chinese detention since 2015, when he went missing during a holiday in Thailand.

    He is known to have previously published books on the personal lives of Chinese Communist Party members.

    Rights groups condemned the “harsh sentence” and called for his release.

    He was one of five owners of a small bookstore in Hong Kong who went missing in 2015. It later emerged that they had been taken to China. Four were later freed, but Mr. Gui remained in Chinese detention.

    In delivering its verdict, the Ningbo Intermediate People’s Court said that his Chinese citizenship had been reinstated in 2018. China does not recognise dual citizenship.

    Sweden’s foreign minister on Tuesday called for Mr. Gui’s release, referring to him as a “citizen”.

    “We have not had access to the trial,” said Ann Linde in a tweet. “[We] demand that Gui be released and that we have access to our citizens to provide consular support.”

    But according to a Reuters report, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said consular arrangements had been put on hold because of the latest coronavirus outbreak, and would be restored once the health problem was “resolved”.

    Zhao Lijian added that Mr. Gui’s “rights and interests… [had] been fully guaranteed”.

    Human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday also called for Mr. Gui to be released immediately and said the charges were “completely unsubstantiated”.

    A forced confession?

    Mr Gui first made headlines in 2015 when he vanished from Thailand and resurfaced in China.

    After his disappearance, there were allegations that he had been abducted by Chinese agents. Chinese officials, however, say Mr. Gui and the four other men all went to China voluntarily.

    The bookseller ultimately confessed to being involved in a fatal traffic accident more than a decade earlier – a confession supporters say was forced.

     

    He served two years in prison but he was arrested months after his release while he was travelling to the Chinese capital of Beijing with two Swedish diplomats.

    China later released a video interview featuring Mr. Gui. In it, he accused Sweden of “sensationalising” his case. It is not uncommon for Chinese criminal suspects to appear in “confessional” videos.

    Earlier in 2019, Sweden recalled its ambassador to China Anna Lindstedt, who was accused of brokering an unauthorised meeting between Angela Gui – the daughter of Mr Gui – and two Chinese businessmen.

    Ms. Gui – who has been vocal in campaigning for her father’s release – said one of the men had pressured her to accept a deal where her father would go to trial and might be sentenced to “a few years” in prison, and in return, she would stop all publicity around her father’s detention.

    Source: BBC

  • Coronavirus: We were not convinced by Akufo-Addo’s promises – NUGS-China

    The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) in Wuhan, China say they were not convinced with President Akufo-Addo’s comment on their evacuation from China during the State of the Nation Address. According to them, they did not get any positive assurance from President Akufo-Addo.

    They have called on the government to evacuate them ever since the deadly coronavirus broke out in China.

    Vice President of NUGS- Wuhan, Michael Adney told Citi News that no concrete assurances were given to restore their hopes.

    “On Thursday, we keenly watched the State of the Nation Address as delivered by His Excellency. Despite the assurance that they are still monitoring the situation and putting in place mechanisms to see if it becomes possible to evacuate us, we feel like the evacuation is not going to happen especially after the financial support and food they are providing.”

    “Because as of now, the situation is at its peak and we believe that the longer we stay here, the more vulnerable we are to possibly get infected with the virus. And the more we stay here, the more difficult it becomes for us to be evacuated. We are basically coming into terms with it. But if the government assesses the situation and they feel they will come for us, we will accept it but we want it to be done in a fast manner,” he pleaded.

    During the SONA, President Akufo-Addo said that government will evacuate Ghanaians students from China if the need arises.

    According to him, the government will evacuate students from China if other options aimed at confining the disease to the area of origin fails.

    “The government is in constant touch with experts on the subject who have advised that the basic principle of public health is to confine the disease to the area of origin but we have not ruled out the option of evacuating the students from Wuhan if that becomes necessary.”

    “We have put in place measures to ensure that if the evacuation happens, it will not lead to the dissemination of fear and panic amongst the general population,” the President said.

    Source: primenewsghana.com

  • Chinese firm wants to build dam on Nile River

    Uganda has received an application for a licence to build a hydroelectric power plant on the Nile River from a Chinese firm, documents seen by Reuters News Agency show.

    The $1.4bn plant, if approved, will expand the East African country’s power generation by 40 percent, a regulatory official who also confirmed the application, said.

    The firm, POWERCHINA International Group Limited (PIGL), wants to develop the Ayago Hydroelectric Power Station, located on a section of the Nile between lakes Kyoga and Albert, according to its licence application.

    “We have called for comments from the public on their proposed project,” Julius Wandera, spokesman for the state-run power regulator, Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) told Reuters on Tuesday.

    The ERA licences all power generators in the country and is also responsible for setting generation and end-user power tariffs.

    The Ayago power plant will have a capacity of 840 megawatts (MW) and, when successfully developed, would be Uganda’s largest power plant.

    The Karuma hydroelectric dam, upstream of Ayago and due to be completed early this year by China’s Synohydro Corporation, is currently Uganda’s largest power project.

    The ERA would also conduct its own due diligence on POWERCHINA International to ascertain whether it had the financial and technical capacity to execute the project, Wandera said.

    “By April we should be communicating our final decision on their application to them,” he said.

    According to their application, the firm plans to raise funds for the project through a 25-75 percent mix of equity and debt.

    The project could potentially ramp up Uganda’s generation capacity by 40 percent to about 2,800MW according to calculations from data available from the energy ministry.

    In recent years, Uganda has been wooing private-sector energy investors and taking loans from China and other sources to help boost power production to meet fast-growing demand.

    To make the sector attractive to foreign investors, the government abolished subsidies for consumers and introduced a tariff-setting system that is benchmarked on movements in key parameters such as inflation, foreign exchange and oil prices.

    Uganda is one of six countries that signed a 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) that allows upstream Nile basin countries to develop projects along the river without Egypt’s consent as it was in a previous colonial-era agreement on the use of Nile waters.

    Building dams on the Nile has proven controversial in recent years with Egypt, which almost entirely depends on the water from the river, seeing them as a national security threat.

    Ethiopia is currently building a dam on its section of the Nile. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is about 70 percent complete and promises to provide much-needed electricity to Ethiopia’s 100 million people.

    However, Egyptian officials are concerned that filling the reservoir behind the dam could significantly reduce the amount of Nile water available to Egypt.

    The two countries are negotiating a way forward and are expected to strike a deal in the coming weeks.

    Source: ghanaweb.com

  • You have 72 hours to evacuate Ghanaian students in China Minority to government

    The Minority Caucus has called on the Government to as a matter of urgency, evacuate Ghanaian students currently locked up in China, to a less coronavirus-prone area or back to Ghana.

    They have in effect, given the Akufo-Addo-led government a three-day ultimatum to take action.

    Failure to that, they noted, will see them reconvene and tell the world their next line of action.

    According to them, France, United State of America, Switzerland, Philippines, Russia, Libya among other countries have all evacuated their nationals from China as a result of the CoronaVirus.

    The United States of America, they noted, is even doing a second round evacuation of their nationals, urging the Government to swiftly move in to save the Ghanaian students before anything bad befalls on them.

    Over 400 Ghanaian students are estimated to be in China.

    At a press briefing on the sidelines of Parliamentary sitting, Tuesday, the Ranking Members of the Foreign Affairs and Health Committees, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, said Ghana has the capacity to evacuate their students from China, especially, those trapped in Wuhan, the epicenter of the CoronaVirus.

    They cited war ravaged Libya as an example to buttress their argument, stressing that during the war nine years ago, Ghana was able to evacuate her nationals who were more than a thousand back to Ghana.

    According to them, records released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicates that 1,016 people have been confirmed dead with 43,000 infested with the Corona Virus.

    “The Government cannot be insensitive to the plight of Ghanaians. This is a humanitarian issue and the earlier the government acts, the better”, they noted.

    Source: kasapafmonline.com

  • Coronavirus: Government has no justification to ignore Ghanaian students in China – Ablakwa

    Minority Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa says the Akufo-Addo government can not continue to ignore the plea of Ghanaian students in China who want to be evacuated back to Ghana.

    The over 150 students in Wuhan have called on the government to bring them back to Ghana due to the rapid spread of the deadly coronavirus.

    The students have accused the Ghana government of not listening to their plea and Mr Ablakwa says the government needs to act fast because other countries are evacuating their nationals.

    “There can be no justification for the continuous neglect of our nationals by the Akufo-Addo government, particularly when you consider the fact that other countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Libya have all evacuated their nationals and our students are seeing this. Poorer countries like Uzbekistan have all made a move and brought their nationals home.”

    This is the second time the Ghanaian students are calling for evacuation.

    According to them, they are lockdown in Wuhan, with that all shops in the city have been closed making it difficult for them to get access to their basic necessities.

    They say the situation in Wuhan has left some of the Ghanaian students emotionally traumatized.

    The death toll from the virus was at least 638 as of Thursday evening.

    Source: primenewsghana.com

  • Chinese Embassy in Ghana sets new strategy for visa application to China, heres how

    According to the Embassy, the new set of rules is to quickly detect applicants who exhibit symptoms of the virus and get them the required medical attention.

    The Chinese Ambassador, Shi Ting Wang explained the decision during a press briefing.

    He noted that the measures include applicants being tested for high temperature and using hand sanitizers even before filling the application forms.

    “Anybody who comes to apply for a visa to China will be checked of high temperature, should it exceed 37.3?C the person will be advised to seek medical attention,” he said.

    The Ambassador also said the Chinese government will not ignore any Ghanaian in Wuhan or any of the Chinese cities who show symptoms of the deadly virus but ensure the person receives the required medical care.

    Mr Shi Ting Wang further commended the Foreign Ministry and Ghana government for their support in fighting the new epidemic.

    So far, 304 people in China were confirmed dead in the 24 hours to the end of February 1, due to the virus whereas thousands more have been confirmed infected, bringing that total to 14,380 people.

    No Africa country has, so far, recorded a case for the virus.

    However, a small proportion of cases around 100 occurred outside China. The UK, US, Russia and Germany have all confirmed cases in recent days, Ghana and other African countries are yet to report a case.

    Meanwhile, the Health Ministry in Ghana has directed that all non-essential travels to China be avoided or delayed.

    Source: Pulse.com.gh

  • Coronavirus: China to pump billions into economy amid growth fears

    China is to pump a net 150 billion yuan ($22bn; £16.3bn) into its economy on Monday to help protect it from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

    China’s central bank said the move would ensure there was enough liquidity in the banking system and help provide a stable currency market.

    The virus has so far infected more than 14,000 people and claimed 305 lives – all but one inside China.

    The money will be deployed when China’s markets reopen on Monday.

    It comes after a holiday to mark the Lunar New Year was extended in the hope of reducing the spread of the virus.

    Financial regulators in the country have said they believe the impact on China’s already slowing economy will be “short term”.

    First death from coronavirus outside China
    Can people recover from coronavirus? And other questions

    But analysts say the impact of the virus – which has left major cities in full or partial lockdown – could harm growth if it lasts for a prolonged period.

    China’s travel and tourism sectors have already taken a hit over an unusually quiet Spring Festival break, while cinemas were forced to close to try to contain the virus.

    Meanwhile, numerous factories have suspended production while companies have instructed employees to work from home

    Foxconn, Toyota, Starbucks, McDonald’s and Volkswagen are just a few of the corporate giants to have paused operations or shuttered outlets across China.
    Slowing economy

    The country saw economic growth of 6.1% last year – the slowest in around three decades, in part because of its prolonged trade war with the US. A partial trade deal easing tensions was struck earlier this month, but most tariffs remain in place.

    Economist George Magnus, associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, told the BBC the size of central bank’s injection reflected “policymakers’ concerns about the state of the economy”.

    “The coronavirus repercussions on the economy mark the latest in a series of setbacks in the economy over the past year, including a handful of bank failures sparking contagion fears, forcing the central bank to become ever more generous with the provision of liquidity to markets.”

    In total, the central bank will inject 1.2 trillion yuan into the financial system on Monday – the largest single day addition on record.

    The net figure will be considerably lower, however, although the bank said it could make more cash available throughout the week.

    Braced for volatility

    China’s central bank has announced other economic measures in the face of a deepening coronavirus epidemic, including providing banks with 300 billion yuan to lend to affected companies.

    Authorities have also relaxed tariffs on goods imported for use in the virus fight – including those from the US.

    Investors are bracing for volatility when Chinese markets reopen on Monday. The country’s stock, currency and bond markets have all been closed since 23 January and were due to reopen last Friday.

    Global markets have been rattled by the epidemic, with the US S&P 500 notching up its worst week since October on Friday.

    Source: bbc.com

  • 36 evacuated from China to France show virus symptoms – Minister

    Thirty six people aboard an evacuation flight from China that landed in France on Sunday showed symptoms of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 360 people, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said.

    In all, 254 people arrived in France from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the deadly virus was first detected, on the second such flight.

    “About 20 people who presented symptoms have stayed on the tarmac” at Istres airport in the south of France to undergo further testing, Buzyn told journalists. They included French and non-European nationals.

    Tests were carried out to establish whether they had the coronavirus and the results will be known on Monday, the health ministry told AFP.

    A further 16 foreign nationals displaying symptoms were flown back to their respective countries.

    The second evacuation flight was carrying people of 30 different nationalities, most of them European. Sixty five of the returnees were French.

    A total of 124 non-French evacuees swiftly travelled on to their home countries, according to military sources in Istres.

    Nine Belgians and three of their partners as well as 15 Dutch citizens and their two Chinese partners were isolated after travelling on from Istres to a military airport near Brussels, according to Belga news agency.

    However, 60 others from Mexico, Rwanda, Brazil and Georgia remained on French soil, Buzyn told reporters.

    Some of the returnees will be quarantined for 14 days while others would be allowed to head back to their home countries if they showed no symptoms of the virus, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French broadcaster RTL.

    The first planeload of evacuees from China arrived on Friday and are in quarantine at a resort on the Mediterranean coast.

    Two passengers from that flight were identified as possible cases of coronavirus, but tests on them came back negative.

    Le Drian hailed the “remarkable” cooperation by the Chinese authorities which has allowed all the French nationals who wanted to return home to do so.

    The health minister assured that the arrival of more people from Wuhan presented no extra risk of contagion of the virus.

    France and its fellow G7 countries will discuss a joint response to the coronavirus epidemic, Germany’s health minister said on Sunday.

    So far in France, only six cases of coronavirus have been detected.

    Source: France24

  • China to open new hospital as virus death toll passes 360

    China’s death toll from a new coronavirus jumped above 360 on Monday to surpass the number of fatalities of its SARS crisis two decades ago, with dozens of people dying in the epicentre’s quarantined ground-zero.

    The 57 confirmed new deaths was the single-biggest increase since the virus was detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan, where it is believed to have jumped from animals at a market into humans.

    The virus has since spread to more than 24 countries, despite many governments imposing unprecedented travel bans on people coming from China.

    The World Health Organization has declared the crisis a global health emergency, and the first foreign death from the virus was reported in the Philippines on Sunday.

    In China, all but one of the 57 new deaths were reported Monday in Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province, most of which has been under lockdown for almost two weeks to stop people leaving and transmitting the virus.

    The national death toll reached 361, exceeding the 349 mainland fatalities from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03.

    SARS, caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people — with most of the other deaths in Hong Kong.

    Economic woes

    The virus is also having an increasingly heavy economic impact, shutting down businesses across China, curbing international travel and impacting production lines of major international brands.

    Stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen plunged by nearly nine percent on Monday morning as investors returned from a Lunar New Year holiday that had been extended to stop people travelling around China.

    In Wuhan, which has been transformed from a bustling industrial hub into a near-ghost town, residents have been living in deep fear of catching the virus.

    Its medical facilities have been overwhelmed, and the government has been racing to build two new hospitals in extraordinarily quick timeframes.

    The first of those, a 1,000-bed facility, was due to open on Monday, just 10 days after construction began.

    About 1,400 military medics will treat patients at the hospital, dubbed “Fire God Mountain”, according to state media.

    However with the death toll surging in Wuhan and elsewhere in Hubei province, it was not immediately clear what overall impact the hospitals would have on the virus spreading elsewhere.

    In a worrying signal about it already spreading in significant numbers to other parts of China, the eastern industrial city of Wenzhou was on Sunday placed under a similar lockdown to Wuhan.

    Roads in Wenzhou, 800 kilometres (500 miles) to the east, were closed and its nine million people were ordered to stay indoors.

    Only one resident per household in Wenzhou is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, authorities announced.

    Travel curbs

    The emergence of the virus coincided with the Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions travel across the country in planes, trains and buses for family reunions.

    The holiday — originally scheduled to end last Friday — was extended by three days to give authorities more time to deal with the crisis.

    But some major cities — including Shanghai — extended the holiday again, and many schools and universities delayed the start of new terms.

    Road traffic on Sunday, when hundreds of millions of people would have been expected to return to their cities of work, was down 80 percent, the transport ministry said.

    The number of infections in China also jumped signficantly on Monday, passing 17,200.

    Stopping the spread

    The first person to die overseas from the virus was a 44-year-old man from Wuhan who travelled to the Philippines, the World Health Organization said.

    The G7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — have all confirmed cases of the virus.

    They will discuss a joint response, Germany’s health minister Jens Spahn said on Sunday.

    The US, Australia, New Zealand and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, and they have also warned their own citizens against travelling there.

    Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders.

    Source: France24

  • Passengers from China to be screened to prevent spread of Coronavirus

    The Ministry of Health (MoH) has announced a series of measures it is taking to prevent the spread of Coronavirus in Ghana including screening all passengers from China.

    China has recorded cases of Coronavirus where nine persons have been reported dead.

    “As part of measures to prevent an outbreak in Ghana, passengers from China will undergo enhanced screening procedures including the administration of health questionnaire. Health facilities have also been alerted to prepare and manage cases in case of outbreak,” a statement from the MoH noted.

    Mubarak Wakaso set to move to China to join Jiangsu Suning

    The health authorities in China confirmed the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus in December, 2019 after a series of reported cases of pneumonia of unknown cause.

    The outbreak was linked to a local animal market spread from animals to humans but has also been found to spread from one person to the other.

    It can be spread when an infected person coughs or sneeze on another person.

    Thailand, South Korea, Japan and the United Arab Emirates have also reported cases of the disease.

    China gifts 100 police vehicles to Ghana

    The statement signed by the sector minister; Kwaku Agyeman-Manu assured that Ghana has in-country capacity to diagnose the infection at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research.

    Authorities have, however, cautioned the public to regularly wash their hands with soap and water, keep a distance from persons showing signs of fever and immediately seek treatment upon suspicion of infection.

    COROVIRUS-1 by The Independent Ghana on Scribd

    Source: classfmonline.com

  • China signals veto in standoff over UN Afghanistan mission

    China and the United States are deadlocked over a United Nations Security Council resolution to extend the world body’s political mission in Afghanistan, with Beijing signalling it will cast a veto because there is no reference to its global Belt and Road infrastructure project, diplomats said on Monday.

    A planned vote by the 15-member Security Council to renew the mission, known as UNAMA, was delayed from Monday to Tuesday to allow for further negotiations. The mission’s mandate expires on Tuesday. To pass, a resolution needs nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the US, France, China, Russia and Britain.

    Ahead of the postponement, diplomats said China was expected to veto a resolution – drafted by Germany and Indonesia – that did not reference the Belt and Road project. China’s UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Read:US-China trade war and its impact on Africa

    China was then planning to propose a vote on a short draft resolution, known as a technical rollover, to allow the mission to keep operating, diplomats said. But they added that it could fail to get the nine votes needed to pass because several council members were considering abstaining.

    The UN mission, which was established in 2002, is helping Afghanistan prepare for September 28 elections and is pushing for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

    Talks between the US and the Taliban on a US military withdrawal fell apart earlier this month.

    There are 14,000 US troops and thousands of others from NATO in the country, 18 years after a US-led coalition invaded following the September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on the US.

    The UNAMA mandate is renewed annually by the Security Council. The resolutions in 2016, 2017 and 2018 all included a reference welcoming and urging efforts like China’s Belt and Road initiative to facilitate trade and transit.

    But when it came time to extend the mandate again in March, the US and other Western council members wanted the language removed, sparking a standoff with China. The council ended up adopting a six-month technical rollover to allow the mission to keep operating.

    Read:Trade war: US set to hit China with new wave of tariffs

    At the time, acting US Ambassador Jonathan Cohen slammed China for holding “the resolution hostage” by insisting “on making it about Chinese national political priorities rather than the people of Afghanistan.”

    He criticised Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative – to link China by sea and land through an infrastructure network with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa – for “known problems with corruption, debt distress, environmental damage, and lack of transparency.”

    At a Security Council meeting on Afghanistan last week, Cohen referred to the continuing impasse with China.

    “We strongly believe this mandate is too important at this moment to have one Security Council member deny consensus for reasons having nothing to do with UNAMA,” Cohen said.

    China’s UN ambassador, Zhang Jun, did not specifically mention the negotiations on the UNAMA resolution, but said Beijing was working with Afghanistan to advance “the Belt and Road construction to actively support the Afghan rebuilding and its reintegration into the regional economic development.”

    Source: aljazeera.com

  • China says its drone can hunt like Spiderman

    Call it the Spiderman of drones.

    China says it has developed a new hunter drone that can disable other drones — or even small aircraft — by firing a 16-square-meter (172 square feet) web at them.

    “Caught by the web, the hostile drone should lose power and fall to ground,” said a report on the Chinese military’s English-language website.

    Developed by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, the drone can work alone but also can integrate with China’s defense system for small, slow and low-flying targets, according to the report.

    Read:Changi Airport: Drones disrupt flights in Singapore

    The hexacopter drone can also perform surveillance and reconnaissance, it said.

    This is the second drone advance announced by China in recent weeks. At an airshow in Russia in August, China displayed the stealth-capable LJ-I, a target drone it says will help the People’s Liberation Army Air Force prepare for any potential combat with the F-35 stealth fighters deployed by the US and its partners in the Pacific.

    Designed for target practice, the LJ-I can be flown in formations to simulate actual combat conditions, according to the report on the state-sponsored Global Times.

    Read:Drone no-fly zone to be widened after Gatwick chaos

    A video played at the airshow showed a Chinese bomber releasing several of the LJ-I drones, which then simulated an attack on a PLA Navy destroyer.

    “The destroyer was able to detect the drones with its radar system despite them being stealthy, launched missiles to destroy those that came from above, and fired a close-in gun to shoot down one skimming over the surface of the sea,” the Global Times report said.

    China is a world leader in drone technology, especially smaller, low-cost ones, a fact acknowledged by the Pentagon recently when it set up a program to seek investors in making American counterparts.

    Source: cnn.com