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Tag: China

  • VIDEO: Senior journalist cracks netizens up by saying ‘coronavirus came from Italy’s corona city’

    VIDEO: Senior journalist cracks netizens up by saying ‘coronavirus came from Italy’s corona city’

    A senior journalist and analyst has left netizens in fits of laughter after claiming that the new coronavirus “probably originated in the corona city of Italy” that is the most affected by the global pandemic.

    There is no city called ‘corona’ in Italy, and even if there was, we doubt it could have anything to do with the outbreak of the COVID-19 that, since its discovery in Wuhan city of China, has claimed over 4,500 lives with at least 126,000 infections.

    “…it’s happening in Italy that is very much affected and corona[virus] probably originated from its corona area,” senior journalist Nazir Leghari can be heard as saying in a video doing rounds over the internet.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    Here’s what Twitterati have to say about it:

    Some even went on to explain how COVID-19 — the new coronavirus — got its name.

    COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a new virus that had not been previously identified in humans. The virus causes respiratory illness (like the flu) with symptoms such as a cough, fever and in more severe cases, pneumonia. You can protect yourself by washing your hands frequently and avoiding touching your face.

    It was discovered in mainland China in mid-December and has since spread globally despite efforts to contain it.

  • China, Russia, Italy make Pakistan 11th largest arms importer in world

    Pakistan is the 11th largest arms importer in the world, a report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) — an institute that tracks arms deals around the world — has revealed.

    As per the figures released by SIPRI, China, Russia and Italy are the main suppliers of arms to Pakistan, with Beijing accounting for 73% of the total imports during 2015-2019, and Moscow as well as Rome accounting for 6.6% and 6.1%, respectively.

    The actual share of Pakistani imports in the world has, however, decreased by 39% during the said period, the report revealed. The overall decrease in Pakistan’s arms imports over the latest five-year period was linked to the United States’ (US) decision to stop military aid to the country.

    The institute further noted that Pakistan was among the top three buyers of arms from top weapons exporters like Italy and Turkey. Pakistan had a 7.5% share in arms imports from Italy between 2015-2019, and 12% share in Turkish arms over the same period.

    SIPRI also identified a significant drop in arms sales to South Asia by the US, which was listed as the largest arms exporter in the world between 2015-2019. The institute noted that US arms imports to Pakistan declined by 92%, and to India by 51% over this period. The US, which had accounted for 30% of Pakistan’s arms imports in 2010–14, was responsible for only 4.1% in 2015–19.

    Meanwhile, Islamabad was identified as the largest buyer of Chinese arms between 2015-2019, accounting for 35% of the arms exported by Beijing — the fifth largest exporter of weapons in the world in the five-year period.

    According to SIPRI, China accounted for 51% of Pakistan’s arms imports in 2010–14 and for 73% in 2015–19. SIPRI also noted that Pakistan continued to import arms from Europe, strengthening relations with Turkey with orders for 30 combat helicopters and four frigates in 2018.

    India, on the other hand, has retained its position as the second-largest arms importer in the world followed by Saudi Arabia that now imports 12% of its arms (2015-19) as against 5.6% in 2010-14 — a jump of 130%, the report said.

  • Apple, Nike and Samsung among 83 brands using Uyghur Muslim ‘forced labour’

    Apple, Nike and Samsung among 83 brands using Uyghur Muslim ‘forced labour’

    Tens of thousands of Uyghur Muslims, who face persecution in neighbouring China, have been transferred out of the country’s western Xinjiang province and delivered as workers to major factories as part of a government scheme, a report by The Independent has claimed while citing the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

    As per the details, the Australian think tank has identified 83 global brands, including Apple, Nike, Samsung and Sony among others whose supply chains in China are employing Uyghur Muslims in conditions that could amount to forced labour.

    China has been accused of detaining more than a million Uyghurs in Xinjiang as part of what it calls a campaign to tackle Islamic extremism. It initially denied this, before recently saying that all those in the “vocational centres” had “graduated” and been given jobs.

    The ASPI report, based on analysis of government documents and local media reports, said the Uyghurs continued to live “a harsh and segregated life” once they entered the workforce of major factories.

    More than 80,000 Uyghurs had been transferred far from their homes to work in at least 27 factories across nine provinces, it said.

    There, the workers continued to be subject to surveillance, banned from practising their religion, forced to take part in mandarin language classes and restricted in their travel back to Xinjiang.

    “Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen,” the think-tank said in the introduction to its report.

    While ASPI describes itself as an independent think-tank whose core aim is to provide insight for the Australian government on matters of defence, security and strategic policy, the Chinese government has denied violating the rights of its workers, describing the report as “following along with the United States’ (US) anti-China forces that try to smear China’s anti-terrorism measures in Xinjiang”.

  • Iran blames Pakistan for spread of coronavirus

    Iran blames Pakistan for spread of coronavirus

    With the coronavirus death toll in Iran rising to 15 among 64 reported cases, Tehran has allegedly blamed Islamabad for the epidemic, saying it was brought to the country by Pakistani nationals illegally crossing into Iranian territory.

    The outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus — a severe acute respiratory syndrome named ‘COVID-19’ by the World Health Organization (WHO) — is an ongoing pandemic that originated in the central Chinese province of Hubei’s capital city, Wuhan.

    The virus, as of February 25, has claimed 2,663 lives with over 25,000 recoveries. COVID-19 spreading to other parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, North America and Europe, has infected more than 80,000 people globally.

    In Hubei, the number of cases appears to be stabilising, according to government figures. But the number of people infected elsewhere in the world is rising quickly, with clusters in South Korea, Italy, Iran and a cruise ship docked in Japan.

    While Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has suspended flight operations to China and Japan till March 15 due to the outbreak, Pakistan has closed its border with Iran after casualties from the deadly coronavirus were reported on Monday.

    The outbreak in Iran began in the city of Qom, an often-visited religious destination.

    According to authorities, Islamabad has suspended trade activities across the western border and barred citizens from travelling to Iran through the five existing border gates. The border town of Taftan in Balochistan has been quarantined for screening, while a 100-bed tent hospital has been set up in the area for pilgrims coming back from Iran, officials told The Current.

    “The government is in close contact with Iranian authorities to save Pakistani pilgrims from coronavirus,” Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Noorul Haq Qadri said in a statement. He added that his ministry had deployed a special team in Taftan to protect Pakistani pilgrims returning from Iran.

    Amid Pakistani actions aimed at what the government calls “continuing to successfully avoid” an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, Iranian officials have claimed it reached the country with Pakistani, Afghan and Chinese nationals illegally crossing the border to enter Iran.

    “It is not possible for the virus to reach Iran otherwise,” an Iranian official said on the condition of anonymity. They added that Afghanistan had also confirmed its first infection, so the possibility of the virus reaching the country via its northern neighbour, could not be ruled out either.

    The claims were, however, contradicted by government sources.

    They said these “unverified” claims were untrue and being made by some local Iranian media agency, but it was not the time for blame game. “Coronavirus is a real threat. Every country in the region and the world is at risk. We all need to pool together our resources and fight it instead of shifting blame on one country or the other.”

    Government sources also said that both Pakistani and Iranian health advisers and their ministers knew each other for a long time. “Cooperation is quite good between the two health ministries and the governments are in close touch with each other. They are satisfied with the mutual assistance.”

    ‘NO CORONAVIRUS IN PAKISTAN’:

    Speaking to The Current, National Institute of Health (NIH) Focal Person Dr Muhammad Salman rejected the claims and clarified that for Pakistan to be responsible for the pandemic in Iran, there should’ve been any cases on this side of the border first.

    “Pakistan has in a scientific way, and while using evidence-based public health measures, dealt with the threats of a coronavirus outbreak in the country, and not even a single case has surfaced until now,” he said and reiterated that all such claims were false.

    He maintained that Dr Zafar Mirza had been on the frontline in curbing the potential risk, and owing to the efforts of the government, Pakistan was safe until now despite the virus affecting neighbouring Afghanistan, Iran and reportedly even India.

    CORONAVIRUS:

    In late December, a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown aetiology was reported by health authorities in Wuhan. The initial cases mostly had epidemiological links to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and consequently, the virus is thought to have a zoonotic origin.

    The virus that caused the outbreak is known as SARS-CoV-2, a new virus which is closely related to bat coronaviruses, pangolin coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-1.

    The earliest reported symptoms occurred on December 1, 2019, in a person who had not had any exposure to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market or to the remaining 40 of the first cluster detected with the new virus.

    Of this first cluster, two-thirds were found to have a link with the market, which also sold live animals.

    A large response, both in China and globally, followed an increase in cases in mid-January 2020, bringing travel restrictions, quarantines and even curfews.

    Examples include the quarantine of the British cruise ship, Diamond Princess, in Japanese waters; the curfew of over 780 million people in China, a voluntary curfew in South Korea, and the curfew of a dozen towns with over 50,000 people in Italy.

    The outbreak has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the WHO, and airports, as well as train stations, have implemented body temperature checks, health declarations and information signage in an attempt to identify carriers of the virus.

    Among the wider consequences of the outbreak are concerns about potential economic instability and incidents of racism against people of Chinese and East Asian descent, which have been reported in several countries.

  • Coronavirus: PIA suspends flight operations to Beijing till March 15

    Coronavirus: PIA suspends flight operations to Beijing till March 15

    Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Monday announced to once again suspend flight operations to China till March 15, journalist Sophia Saifi and Geo News reported.

    Reports quoted a PIA spokesperson as saying that a decision about extending or ending the suspension would be taken after reviewing the situation.

    “PIA has suspended flights to Beijing till March 15,” Geo reported.

    The decision comes amid the spread of the deadly virus to another neighbouring country, Iran, where the death toll rose to eight since the infection was reported on Wednesday last week.

    Last month, Pakistan had suspended operations to China briefly amid coronavirus outbreak and allowed airlines to resume flights only after installing screening machines at airports.

  • Pakistan has a cure for coronavirus and Chinese can’t stop thanking for it

    Pakistan has a cure for coronavirus and Chinese can’t stop thanking for it

    Pakistan has an effective drug for COVID-19, over 300,000 pieces of which have been exported to China, said an article published by Economic Daily – China Economic Net (CEN) on February 21, which has gotten 5.71 million page views and 38,000 likes.

    In nearly 10,000 comments, in addition to a lot of thanks to Pakistani friends for their help, some netizens were interested in the “multinational enterprise” mentioned in the CEN reporter’s article and wanted to know the hero behind the scenes who urgently dispensed the effective drugs at a Bayer — German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company — subsidiary in Pakistan.

    On February 20, after noticing that the official Weibo account of Bayer China said it had made an emergency deployment of chloroquine phosphate tablets in Pakistan at the beginning of this month, the CEN reporter quickly contacted to verify the matter.

    The official Weibo account of Bayer China confirmed the news and said that the batch of medicines was completed in 24 hours. 200,000 of the 300,000 tablets were “sold” to Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited (GPHL) at zero yuan.

    READ: Iran blames Pakistan for spread of coronavirus

    Earlier, Economic Daily reported that on February 5, GPHL first purchased 15,000 tablets of chloroquine phosphate in Pakistan through various channels, and then purchased another 200,000 tablets. The drugs arrived in Guangzhou at 7 pm on February 8.

    Data from clinical trials being performed in China has revealed that chloroquine phosphate could help treat the new coronavirus disease, Covid-19.

    China National Center for Biotechnology Development deputy head Sun Yanrong said that chloroquine, an anti-malarial medication, was selected after several screening rounds of thousands of existing drugs.

    AFP has also verified claims pertaining to the effectiveness of the drug against the virus.

    It took less than four days from purchasing in Pakistan to arriving in Guangzhou. In addition to the international and domestic airline time, it is not easy for Pakistan, a country with less developed transport infrastructure that is suffering from a severe locust plague, to urgently collect, transport and cooperate to undertake the fastest international rescue for dispensing the effective drugs to treat COVID-19.

    The CEN reporter learned from further interviews that chloroquine phosphate production was suspended in China for 20 years. In order to deliver the first batch of effective drugs successfully, from February 5 to 8, in addition to GPHL and Bayer, there are many more heroes behind the scenes, such as China Southern Airlines and Urumqi Customs.

  • Mobile accessory prices rise in Pakistan as coronavirus grips China

    Mobile accessory prices rise in Pakistan as coronavirus grips China

    Markets that depend on Chinese imports are running out of supplies as production in China hasn’t resumed due to coronavirus fears.

    Electronics importers in Pakistan are concerned since most of the supplies they imported from China are almost finished. This includes mobile phone hardware, accessories and spare electronic parts.

    The market has responded to the lessening supplies by raising prices. LCD screens for mobile phones that cost between Rs900 and Rs1,000 now cost Rs1,800. Supplies are also running out.

    A 30% price hike has been recorded for mobile accessories but so far, there are enough supplies for a month.

    A notification by New Asia International Electronic & Digital City, said the delay was “in order to ensure the health and life safety of merchants and customers”.

    Many business-to-business dealers are concerned as supplies were to resume on February 22, which they say would have lightened the demand pressure. Instead, they received messages from their suppliers in China saying that the goods would be delayed indefinitely.

    One of the importers said, “I think we will not get any supplies now until March 6. That, too, if we are lucky.”

    He facilitates all types of imports, including garments, jewelry and electronics. He said that even now the production units in China have not reopened as coronavirus fears are rampant.

    “People are still concerned and production units are empty in China as the virus has not been contained,” he said.

    He also said that a phone brand with a customer base in Pakistan has totally run out of its phones since all its assembly units are in China.

  • ‘Three Pakistanis diagnosed with coronavirus have been cured’

    ‘Three Pakistanis diagnosed with coronavirus have been cured’

    Three Pakistani students diagnosed with coronavirus in China have been cured, the Chinese embassy in Pakistan has said.

    “We are pleased to learn that three Pakistani citizens affected by coronavirus in China have been cured and discharged from hospitals in Guangzhou and Shenzhen of Guangdong province,” the Chinese mission in Pakistan tweeted Wednesday.

    “All the best to them! Thank you, medical team in China,” it added, tagging Pakistan’s Ambassador to China, Naghmana Hashmi, and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (PM) on Health, Dr Zafar Mirza.

    No further details of the students, however, were shared by the mission.

    According to The News, Dr Mirza had in January announced that four Pakistani students in China were tested positive for the coronavirus at a press conference in Islamabad. At that time too, the SAPM had refused to share the names of the affected students with the media.

    “The government will take good care of the students who have contracted the virus,” he had said at the presser.

    The death toll from China’s coronavirus epidemic climbed past 1,100 on Wednesday but the number of new cases fell for a second straight day, raising hope the outbreak could peak later this month.

    As Beijing scrambles to contain the outbreak, the number of people infected on a cruise ship off Japan’s coast rose to 174 — the biggest cluster outside the Chinese mainland.

    Another 97 people died in China, raising the national toll to 1,113, while more than 44,600 people have now been infected by newly named COVID-19 virus.

  • Man threatens to set himself on fire after coronavirus cancels 60th birthday

    Man threatens to set himself on fire after coronavirus cancels 60th birthday

    A man in southwest China doused himself with petrol and tied firecrackers around his waist because authorities cancelled his birthday banquet as a precaution against spreading the coronavirus.

    The Chongqing resident, a 59-year-old surnamed Wang, had planned to hold a banquet with 10 tables late last month, state news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday.

    But with authorities across China restricting public gatherings to contain the outbreak, officials told Wang to cancel the party.

    Hundreds of millions of people across China face restrictions and interruptions to their lives due to efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, which has now infected more than 44,600 people and killed over 1,100.

    Beijing’s municipal authorities announced last week that parties and group dinners at restaurants would be temporarily forbidden in the Chinese capital to prevent the spread of the virus.

    After his party was cancelled, the Chongqing man showed up at a village committee office armed with firecrackers, which he tied around his waist. He also poured gasoline on his chest and held out a lighter in an attempt to “scare and threaten the village committee into allowing the birthday party”.

    Local procurators later filed charges of disorderly behaviour against Wang on Tuesday.

  • Pakistan’s first manmade island to be built in Gwadar at a cost of $10 billion

    Pakistan’s first manmade island to be built in Gwadar at a cost of $10 billion

    Pakistan’s first manmade island — ‘Chaand Taara’ — will be built in Gwadar at a cost of over $10 billion. Shaped like a moon and star to represent Pakistan’s flag, it will form the cities of the Central Business District in the port city on the southwestern coast of Balochistan opposite Oman.

    According to Daily Times, located on Marine Drive and stretching towards Zero Point on the Coastal Highway, the Central Business District is to include a state-of-the-art amusement park, art and culture museum, grand theatre, concert hall, international expo centre, 5-star hotels and resorts, multiple shopping malls and waterfront walk, and a shopping promenade to name a few.

    The mega-development project that will be built around Gwadar Tower — expected to be Pakistan’s tallest building — has been detailed in the Gwadar Smart City Masterplan. The 75-page detailed report has been under development by a Chinese state-owned enterprise with assets of over $132 billion, China Communications Construction Company, and the Pakistani government as a joint-venture.

    The master plan document, prepared in conjunction with Pakistan’s Minister of Planning, Development & Reform and Gwadar Development Authority, chalks out an elaborate road map and plan on how Gwadar is to become the trade and economic hub of South Asia with a GDP per capita of $15,000 — 10 times that of Pakistan’s average.

    In line with Pakistan and China’s grand development plans for Gwadar, it will be Pakistan’s first weapon-free city. The city is being developed under the highest of international standards to be an economic hub not only for Pakistan but for the region and for this reason a robust security environment will be developed to ensure security for foreigners and expats visiting it. The security plans include the highest levels of urban security mechanisms through CCTV, vehicle management, urban video and alarm networks, and police management programmes.

    The report also quoted Balochistan Governor Amanullah Khan Yasinzai as saying that the project will be a game-changer for the people of the region.