Posts

“As the Security Council wrapped up a meeting on North Korea’s dangerous ballistic missile launches, we learned that Pyongyang launched two more missiles,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said in a tweet. “Make no mistake: the two Council members that are blocking us from taking action are enabling North Korea,” she said, referring to the Chinese and Russian delegations, which have vetoed efforts to toughen U.N. sanctions on the regime....

Speaking at a news briefing on Thursday, ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said American suggestions that China has underreported the number of coronavirus infections and deaths within the country were “shameless and immoral,” the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. A U.S. intelligence report sent to the White House last week alleged that China is not releasing the true number of coronavirus infected and dead. China has been celebrated for its apparent quick suppression of the virus, achieved via draconian lockdown measures....

The latest iteration of the virus evolved from the BA.1.1 branch of Omicron and was isolated from a mild coronavirus patient in Suzhou City, located less than 50 miles from Shanghai, the Global Times reported Sunday. Scientists have said that the subtype is not the same as other coronavirus strains that are causing outbreaks in the country or around the world, causing concern that it may pose a greater threat in the region....

During a recent press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that China “expresses strong dissatisfaction [about the visit] and has lodged a solemn representation,” according to Channel News Asia (CNA). Wang also said that the U.S. should be “be prudent when dealing with the Taiwan question and avoid sending any erroneous signals to separatist forces” in Taiwan, according to CNA. The state-run Global Times also criticized the senators trip’ to Taiwan, suggesting that it was a “risky provocation....

Ambassador Robert Wood told the Associated Press that China so far hasn’t developed or been capable of weaponizing the technology. The U.S. does not have either system in its arsenal. “This is something they are looking at,” Wood said. “If they were to develop…these kinds of weapons and aerial systems, this has the potential to change the strategic stability environment in a dynamic way.” For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below:...

The United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, founded two decades ago to mark the beginning of “The American Century,” produces an annual report to Congress, detailing challenges to the bilateral ties between the two countries. The 2020 report, obtained early by Newsweek, took a definitive turn, even for an already historic year, calling on Congress to take action as the international playing field was redefined based on steps taken by Beijing and Washington....

Nadal and Carreno became the first semifinalists of the tournament after resolving their quarterfinal match in one hour and 20 minutes. The Spaniards still do not know their opponents in the next round, since their potential rivals have yet to play the qualifying match. –IANS gau/dg 0 votes

Zeng Yixin, vice minister of China’s National Health Commission, led a press conference in Beijing on Thursday in which he expressed shock at the WHO’s intention to look into research facilities including the often spotlighted Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). “To be honest, I was quite surprised when I first saw the WHO’s phase-two origin-tracing plan,” Zeng said, “because it includes as one of its research priorities the hypothesis that China had violated laboratory procedures, leading to virus leakage....

With the 2008 Olympics just over four months away, Beijing is scrambling to repair its international image following the mayhem. To justify its crackdown, the government has portrayed the upheaval as a ruthless conspiracy spun by the exiled Dalai Lama, triggering bloody, racially motivated attacks by Tibetans against Han Chinese. So far, the tactic has worked: which is to say that it’s prevented ordinary Chinese and most democracy advocates in China from questioning Beijing’s behavior or taking up the Tibetans’ cause....

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - First-time Olympian Zhang Mengxue secured China’s first gold medal of the 2016 Olympics on Sunday by winning the women’s 10-metre air pistol event and extending China’s gold medal streak in the sport. With a score of 199.4 points in 20 shots, the 25-year-old Zhang handily defeated Vitalina Batsarashkina from Russia, the silver medallist with a score of 197.1. Anna Korakaki from Greece won the bronze....

In an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg Television, Milley, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called it a “very significant event” that was “very concerning.” Last week, the Financial Times reported that the Chinese military had conducted a pair of hypersonic missile tests in July and August. Unnamed officials told the paper that government scientists were surprised by the capability, which the U.S. doesn’t currently possess....

The Chinese National Health Commission announced Thursday that, as of Wednesday, it has received a total of 7,771 cases of novel coronavirus, 31 instances of which were deemed to be severe. The contagious disease also known as 2019-nCoV has also killed at least 170 people, according to the commission. The novel coronavirus’ rapid infection rate has surpassed China’s last major outbreak, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, which infected 5,327 and killed 348 people in China, according to the World Health Organization....

Announced by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology on July 6, the huge sail was launched and was successfully used to deorbit the Long March 2 rocket. The sail is made from an incredibly thin membrane, one-tenth the diameter of a human hair, and measures around 270 square feet. When attached to the Long March 2 rocket, it served to increase the atmospheric drag acting on the rocket, accelerating the process of orbital decay and removing it from orbit faster....

Ambassador Chen Xu said Wednesday that Beijing would not prioritize any foreign expert mission to probe the coronavirus outbreak while the pandemic continues. “The top priority, for the time being, is to focus on the fight against the pandemic until we win the final victory,” Chen told reporters during an online video briefing. “We need the right focus and allocation of our resources.” “It’s not that we are allergic to any kind of investigations, inquiries or evaluations,” Chen said, which he noted could help prepare the international community for future pandemics....

This is why, when a video surfaced on Twitter of a young girl selflessly shielding a dog from pouring rain, social media users flooded the replies section with admiring comments. In the clip, the girl can be seen holding her brightly colored umbrella over the animal, following it round to keep it dry as the rain crashes down on her. The child, who is wearing a grey hooded jacket and pink leggings, is apparently unaware that she is being filmed....

Posting under Noswellin to Reddit’s popular Am I The A***** forum, she revealed she made the flippant remark in response to yet another question over when she and her husband were having children. In the post, which has amassed 19,000 upvotes since being shared on Thursday, she confirmed she does like children, including her nieces and nephews. Noswellin explained she and her husband were both in their early 30s and had been together for over a decade, and claimed over the years they had been repeatedly quizzed on the subject of children....

The coalition, comprised of 17 signatories calling themselves “the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations,” included Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Venezuela and the State of Palestine, a U.N. non-member observer state. Their March 10 concept note, obtained by Newsweek, said the group “will strive to preserve, promote and defend the prevalence and validity of the UN Charter....

In a press conference, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning responded to a US Department of Defense report, titled The 2022 State of the Space Industrial Base Report, which recognized space as a “priority domain of national military power,” and suggested that the two nations were participating in a new space race. “For a long time, the U.S. has openly defined space as a war-fighting domain,” Ning said. “It has built the U....

Chinese officials say Beijing’s first case of the COVID-19 Omicron variant may be linked to a package received from Canada, however health experts are skeptical, the CBC reported. The Beijing Center for Disease Control and virologists said the recent cases stemmed from packages shipped abroad. The Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, said Tuesday people who were recently infected had received packages from the United States and Canada, the Associated Press reported....