CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A senior Chinese diplomat on Wednesday likened Australia’s call for an inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic to the betrayal of Roman dictator Julius Caesar in a Shakespearean tragedy for the benefit of the United States.
Wang Xining, the Chinese Embassy in Australia’s deputy head of mission and its second-in-charge, spoke at the National Press Club about Australia’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins of and international responses to the pandemic.
The call has been blamed for a major deterioration in bilateral relations that has resulted in the Chinese government refusing to take phone calls from Australian ministers and disruptions to Australian exports including beef.
The Australian call came “when the United States government was trying all out to blame China for their failure to control the spread of the disease and … shirk responsibility,” Wang said.
It looks like the royal family has decided how they want the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to deal with the word “royal” in their new, non-royal lives. Going forward, Meghan Markle and Harry will be unable to use the name “Sussex Royal” in connection with any of their ventures — a name they’ve built a great deal of brand recognition behind, and slapped on everything from their Instagram to their charity foundation.
BEIJING (AP) — Countries on Wednesday began evacuating their citizens from the Chinese city hardest-hit by an outbreak of a new virus that has killed 132 people and infected more than 6,000 on the mainland and abroad.
China’s latest figures cover the previous 24 hours and add 26 to the number of deaths, 25 of which were in the Hubei province and its capital, Wuhan. The 5,974 cases on the mainland were a rise of 1,459 from the previous day. Dozens of infections of the new type of coronavirus have been confirmed outside mainland China as well.
Earlier in the morning, a plane carrying Americans who had been in Wuhan left for Anchorage, Alaska, where they will be rescreened for the virus. Hospitals are prepared to treat or quarantine people who may be infected. Then the plane is scheduled to fly to Ontario, California.
A week after six children and a pregnant woman were sacrificed in a brutal religious ritual, the inhabitants of a remote village in northwestern Panama fear they might be next.
“No-one can sleep. As soon as they hear a cricket or a cockroach everyone’s on high alert,” said Pacifico Blanco.
Blanco lives in Altos del Terron, an isolated indigenous community where the victims of the ritualistic killings were found last week in a mass grave.
Months after speaking out on the intense media scrutiny they’ve faced, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have announced plans to “step back” from their high-profile royal duties in favor of a “progressive new role within this institution.” A statement released by the couple — who spent the holidays in Canada with son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor — on Wednesday confirms that they will divide their family’s time between the U.K. and North America, and “work to become financially independent.”
Port-au-Prince (AFP) – Ten years ago, Herlande
Mitile was left disabled by the massive earthquake that devastated
Haiti. Today, she uses a wheelchair jury-rigged with a piece of string,
which means she cannot go far.
Result: she is trapped in her
village outside Port-au-Prince. It was meant to be a model for
reconstruction of the country after the disaster.
Instead, the 36-year-old Mitile — who once worked in the capital — is dependent on her neighbors to survive.
“The
doctor told me that if I went to physical therapy, I might walk again,
but you have to go into the city for that. You need money for public
transport and I don’t have any,” she explained.
“That’s how I have
become even more handicapped than I was to begin with,” added Mitile,
who has metal plates screwed into her hip and spine.
Before January 12, 2010, she did not know a thing about earthquakes or the damage they can do.
But
on that Tuesday, more than 200,000 Haitians were killed by the roaring
temblor, many of them crushed to death when substandard concrete
buildings crumbled on top of them.
Mitile was rescued from the debris eight days after the 7.0-magnitude quake. She was alive, but gravely injured.
– Potemkin village –
The Village Lumane Casimir was meant to help dozens of people who were crippled in the January 2010 earthquake; instead the village was half-finished and abandoned, leaving residents to feld for themselves without aid
The Village Lumane Casimir was meant to help dozens of people who were crippled in the January 2010 earthquake; instead the village was half-finished and abandoned, leaving residents to feld for themselves without aid (AFP Photo/CHANDAN KHANNA)
After
months in a makeshift camp, hundreds of which dotted the Port-au-Prince
landscape after the tragedy, Mitile and her two daughters ended up in
Village Lumane Casimir.
Named for one of Haiti’s greatest singers,
the community — about 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside Port-au-Prince
— was created by the government, which offered lodging there to about
50 people disabled in the quake.
The government had hoped it would
be an example or urban development for an impoverished country mired in
corruption, and which to this day has scant real estate records.
The
community was to have 3,000 quake-resistant homes, a market, an
industrial area, police and fire stations, a school and a pharmacy.
On paper, it was a dream community. But the plans never came to fruition.
Like
hundreds of other construction sites during the decade when the
Petrocaribe program was running, the village was abandoned in 2014 with
more than half the buildings undone.
– Scandal and corruption –
The
ambitious project died in the swirling Petrocaribe corruption
controversy that sparked an eruption of public anger in 2018 — anger
that remains to this day.
Since the middle of that year, the
public has regularly demonstrated in Haiti calling for more transparency
in how the funds from Venezuela’s Petrocaribe program were handled.
The
scheme had allowed struggling Haiti to buy petroleum products more
cheaply and on credit, but it was plagued by allegations of misuse of
aid money allocated by Caracas.
The financial upheaval that
resulted from the scandal doomed the village project, and the public
administrative office on site to collect rent closed, creating a sort of
real estate loophole.
So people kept coming to the complex, because all of a sudden, it was a great deal.
“I
came to live here becuse rent had become too high in my old
neighborhood,” explained William Saint-Pierre, who simply squatted in
one vacant house.
Saint-Pierre pays no rent for his two-room dwelling, and doesn’t pay any taxes on his off-book drinks business.
But he also likes the safety of the village with its neatly arranged, brightly colored homes.
“In
the cities after five or six o’clock, you have to stay inside, and
doors have iron gates. Look around us — at my little wooden door, at
homes without a security wall,” Saint-Pierre said.
“I’m getting too old to hear gunshots at all hours of the day and night,” added the 62-year-old.
– Isolation –
Despite
some benefits, including the absence of gang violence, Village Lumane
Casimir is nevertheless geographically isolated and without any
officials to run it.
That puts its most vulnerable residents at even higher risk.
Mitile cannot get around so she cannot find a job. She gets no public assistance. So she has to rely on handouts from neighbors.
“Sometimes, I’ve wanted to die,” she admits, once her daughters aged 12 and 16 are out of earshot.
“When
my neighbors cook, they call my little one and tell her to come get a
bowl for me,” she says, tapping nervously on her damaged wheelchair.
“Before January 12 (the quake), we got by, but now, I’m worse than a baby.”
In
the village, which is effectively run by the residents themselves,
those still suffering from injuries sustained in the quake and those who
came seeking a better life say they feel forgotten by the government.
“If we had to wait for them to make good on their promises, we would be dead,” Mitile says.
ISTANBUL —Five people have been sentenced to death in connection with the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last year, Saudi Arabia’s public
prosecutor announced Monday, but the two most senior officials
implicated in the case, including an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman, were cleared of wrongdoing.
The slaying of Khashoggi in October 2018 sparked a global outcry against the kingdom and led to greater scrutiny of a crackdown on dissidents pursued by the crown prince. Khashoggi, 59, who contributed columns to The Washington Post from his self-imposed exile in the United States, had emerged as one of Mohammed’s most prominent critics.
The verdicts came after a trial in Riyadh’s criminal court that
lasted nearly a year and was shrouded in secrecy. Court sessions were
closed to the public, and foreign officials were told not to reveal
details of the proceedings. Human rights groups warned that the lack of
transparency threatened to obscure the possible involvement of senior
Saudi officials — including the crown prince — in the killing.
The CIA concluded last year that Mohammed had ordered Khashoggi’ s assassination, contradicting Saudi Arabia’s insistence that the crown prince had no advance knowledge of the plot.
It’s a boy! Early this morning, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry welcomed the newest royal baby to the family, according to an official Instagram announcement.
“We are pleased to announce that Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex welcomed their firstborn child,” the couple wrote. “The Duchess and baby are both healthy and well, and the couple thank members of the public for their shared excitement and support during this very special time in their lives.”
The baby was born at 5:26 a.m. Monday morning, weighing seven pounds and three ounces. While the name has yet to be revealed, the Instagram post assured eager fans that more details will be shared in the next few days.
Keeping their first child’s birth private is something that Meghan, 37, and Harry, 34, have been adamant about since the beginning. In a statement released in April, the palace said, “Their Royal Highnesses have taken a personal decision to keep the plans around the arrival of their baby private. The Duke and Duchess look forward to sharing the exciting news with everyone once they have had an opportunity to celebrate privately as a new family.”
The duo also did not disclose where the baby was born. However, both Kate and Pippa Middleton gave birth in the Lindo Wing at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, the same place where Princess Diana had her sons, too.
Meghan and Harry’s son, who will be revealed via a photoshoot at Windsor Castle in the coming days, is seventh in line to inherit the throne. He’s behind Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis, and Prince Harry.
As the world marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I on Sunday, global leaders gathered in Paris to commemorate the solemn moment as France’s president implored countries to forge alliances to preserve peace.
The ceremony for the Armistice Day centennial observance at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier featured more than 60 heads of state and government officials gathered as French President Emmanuel Macron warned about the fragility of peace and the dangers of nationalism.
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,” Macron said. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying ‘Our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values.”
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, right, welcome German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Macron warned that “ancient demons” that caused World War I and millions of deaths are growing stronger, and that global leaders should “fight for peace.
“Let us build our hopes rather than playing our fears against each other,” he said.
Macron made the comments as Trump, who has proudly declared himself a nationalist and proclaimed to be “America First,” watched on.
Last week at a news conference, Trump said: “You have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world and I don’t mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems.”
The president plans to visit the American cemetery at Suresnes on the outskirts of Paris on Sunday afternoon and make remarks before heading home.
The commemorations on Sunday started late, overshooting the centenary of the exact moment when, 100 years earlier at 11 a.m., the eerie silence of peace replaced the thunder of guns in Western France.
As bells marking the armistice hour started ringing out across Paris and in many nations hit by the four years of slaughter, Macron and other leaders were still on their way to the centennial site at the Arc de Triomphe, according to the Associated Press.
Heads of states and world leaders attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, Pool)
Among the line of world leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were positioned between Trump and Macron. The geographical spread of the leaders in attendance showed how the “war to end all wars” left few corners of the earth untouched but which, little more than two decades later, was followed so quickly and catastrophically by the even deadlier World War II.
In the four years of fighting, remembered for brutal trench warfare and the first use of gas, France, the British empire, Russia and the United States had the main armies opposing a German-led coalition that also included the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Almost 10 million soldiers died, sometimes tens of thousands on a single day.
Meng Hongwei, the president of the international law enforcement agency Interpol who mysteriously disappeared last week, was missing because he was detained by the Chinese government. On Sunday night, three days after Meng was reported missing, the Chinese Communist Party announced that he had been detained as part of an investigation by the party’s corruption and loyalty watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. which suspected him of “violating the law.’ ” On Saturday, Interpol had demanded that China provide information about Meng’s whereabouts, but officials in the country, which is currently celebrating a weeklong holiday, did not reply. On Sunday, after Meng’s detention was confirmed, Interpol then announced that he had resigned from his post effective immediately.
A journalist holds the mobile phone of Grace Meng, the wife of the missing Interpol president Meng Hongwey, showing what she says is the last message exchanged with her husband, during a press conference Saturday in Lyon. Photo: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty Images
The last person in contact with the 64-year-old Meng was his wife,
Grace, who told reporters before China’s announcement that she had received a WhatsApp message from him containing nothing but a knife emoji after he had arrived in China, which came several minutes after a message which said, “wait for my call.” When she heard nothing more, she alerted French police and reported him missing on Thursday.
The secretary general of Interpol heads the agency, while Meng had the symbolic but powerful position of running its executive committee, which works on official strategy. He was the first Chinese national to hold the position, which he was appointed to in 2016. And though Meng lives with his family Lyon, France, where Interpol is headquartered, he also retained an official role in China as the country’s vice minister of public security. In the end, China clearly decided that his role at Interpol did not prevent them from detaining him and not even admitting it for days. China has been known to carry out such detentions for years. It is not yet clear what Meng did to make himself a target.
Interpol still hasn’t confirmed whether or not he was visiting China on agency business. CNN reported earlier Sunday that the way Meng went missing was, in fact, pretty common when senior officials of China’s ruling Communist Party are accused of violating its rules. The South China Morning Post, a newspaper known for its connections to China’s government, itself reported that Meng had been detained for questioning by upon landing in China last week, and indicated he may have been the target of an ongoing anti-corruption campaign in the country — a campaign which Chinese president Xi Jinping has used to consolidate his power. In fact, according to the Times, Meng’s presidency had alarmed some human rights groups at the time he was appointed, as they worried he would use Interpol resources to help China go after dissidents abroad.
