International

Two people died and six were missing after an accident in a coal mine in central China, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Saturday. The ‘accidental outburst’ occurred at a coal mine run by Henan Hebi Coal and Electricity Co in the late afternoon on Friday, and the authorities in Henan province have launched an emergency response plan, CCTV said. Last month, the provincial government said it had approved the reopening of another mine operated by Hebi after it was shut for not complying with regulations. China has been carrying out safety inspections at coal mines across the country, but record high coal prices have miners ramping up production to meet supply gaps. In May, China's cabinet said it would work to stabilise rising commodity prices, while encouraging coal producers to boost production to meet global demand.  

* Police arrest annual Tiananmen vigil organiser * Tiananmen vigil banned in HK for second year in a row * Police close vigil site Victoria Park * Activists say ban suppresses democratic freedom * Online calls for 'home light protest' Hong Kong closed off a park where tens of thousands gather annually to commemorate China's 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and arrested the vigil's organiser, in what activists see as suppression of one of the city's main symbols of democratic hope. Thousands of officers are expected to patrol the city's streets on Friday to prevent gatherings of people lighting candles for the pro-democracy protesters killed by Chinese troops in Beijing 32 years ago. The heightened vigilance from authorities was a marked departure from Hong Kong's cherished freedoms of speech and assembly, bringing the global financial hub closer in line with mainland China's strict controls on society, activists say. Hong Kong's annual June 4 vigil, the world's largest, usually held in Victoria Park, is widely seen as a symbol of the former British colony's democratic aspirations and desire to preserve its different way of life from mainland China. Early on Friday, police arrested Chow Hang Tung, vice-chairwoman of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, for promoting an unauthorised assembly. Hours later, officers cordoned off most of the downtown park. ‘She only wanted to go to Victoria Park, light a candle and commemorate,’ Chiu Yan Loy, executive member of the Alliance, told Reuters, adding he believed her arrest was meant to strike fear into those planning to attend the vigil. Police, which banned the vigil for a second year in a row, citing the coronavirus, said there were still social media calls for people to rally despite the ban and warned of more arrests. ‘From the bottom of my heart, I must say I believe Hong Kong is still a very safe and free city,’ senior superintendent Liauw Ka-kei told reporters, adding that police had no option but to enforce the law. Chow told Reuters this week before her arrest that June 4 was a test for Hong Kong ‘of whether we can defend our bottom line of morality’. ‘As long as they haven't said candles are illegal, we will light a candle,’ she said. Her Facebook page said Chow will mark the anniversary by fasting if she is unable to light a candle due to her arrest. The Alliance's chairman, Lee Cheuk-yan, is in jail over an illegal assembly. 'LIGHT A CIGARETTE' Police did not say whether commemorating Tiananmen would breach a sweeping national security law China imposed in 2020 to bring its most restive city onto an authoritarian path. City leader Carrie Lam has only said that citizens must respect the law, as well as the Communist Party, which this year celebrates its 100th anniversary. June 4 commemorations are banned in mainland China. Last year, thousands in Hong Kong defied the ban, gathering in the park and lining up on sidewalks with candles across the city, in what was largely a solemn event, bar a brief scuffle with police in one district. Prominent activist Joshua Wong received a 10-month prison sentence last month for participating in last year's vigil, while three others got four-to-six-month sentences. Twenty more are due in court on June 11 on similar charges. ‘It is a battle against oblivion,’ exiled activist Sunny Cheung told Reuters by text. Many plan to light candles again in their neighbourhood, if safe to do so. Activists online called for people to turn on the lights in their homes at 8.00 p.m. Some churches will be open for prayers. Students at Hong Kong University performed the annual ritual of cleaning the Pillar of Shame statue in the campus, an eight-metre-tall monument commemorating Tiananmen. ‘We want to defend the historical truth,’ student union president Charles Kwok said. Jailed activist Jimmy Sham said via his Facebook page he planned to ‘light a cigarette at 8pm’. ‘We do not see the hope of democracy and freedom in a leader, a group, or a ceremony. Every one of us is the hope of democracy and freedom.’ China has never provided a full account of the 1989 violence. The death toll given by officials days later was about 300, most of them soldiers, but rights groups and witnesses say thousands of people may have perished.  

China reported the world's first human infection of the H10N3 bird flu strain on Tuesday but said the risk of it spreading widely among people was low. A 41-year-old man was admitted to hospital with fever symptoms in the eastern city of Zhenjiang on April 28 and was diagnosed with H10N3 a month later, China's National Health Commission (NHC) said in an online statement. ‘The risk of large-scale spread is extremely low,’ the NHC said, adding that the man was in a stable condition and his close contacts had reported no ‘abnormalities.’ It described H10N3 as low pathogenic -- less likely to cause death or severe illness -- in birds. The NHC said there had been no human cases of H10N3 previously reported in the world. Several strains of bird flu have been found among animals in China but mass outbreaks in humans are rare. The last human epidemic of bird flu in China occurred in late 2016 to 2017, with the H7N9 virus. The H7N9 has infected 1,668 people and claimed 616 lives since 2013, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Following recent avian flu outbreaks in Africa and Eurasia, the head of China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention last week urged stricter surveillance in poultry farms, markets and wild birds. Covid-19 was first detected at a food and animal market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.  

China said on Monday that married couples may have up to three children, a major policy shift from the existing limit of two after recent data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world's most populous country. Beijing scrapped its decades-old one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit that failed to result in a sustained surge in births given the high cost of raising children in Chinese cities - a challenge that remains. ‘To further optimise the birth policy, (China) will implement a one-married-couple-can-have-three-children policy,’ the official Xinhua news agency said in a report following a politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping. The policy change will come with ‘supportive measures, which will be conducive to improving our country's population structure, fulfilling the country's strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources’, Xinhua said. It did not specify the support measures. ‘People are held back not by the two-children limit, but by the incredibly high costs of raising children in today's China. Housing, extracurricular activities, food, trips, and everything else add up quickly,’ Yifei Li, a sociologist at NYU Shanghai, told Reuters. ‘Raising the limit itself is unlikely to tilt anyone’s calculus in a meaningful way, in my view,’ he said. In a poll on Xinhua's Weibo account asking #AreYouReady for the three-child policy, about 29,000 of 31,000 respondents said they would ‘never think of it’ while the remainder chose among the options: ‘I'm ready and very eager to do so’, ‘it's on my agenda’, or ‘I'm hesitating and there's lot to consider’. The poll was later removed. ‘I am willing to have three children if you give me 5 million yuan ($785,650),’ one user posted. Shares in birth- and fertility-related companies surged. SLOWING GROWTH Early this month, China's once-in-a-decade census showed that the population grew at its slowest rate during the last decade since the 1950s, to 1.41 billion. Data also showed a fertility rate of just 1.3 children per woman for 2020 alone, on a par with ageing societies like Japan and Italy. China's politburo also said it would phase in delays in retirement ages, but did not provide any details. Fines of 130,000 yuan ($20,440) were being imposed on people for having a third child as of late last year. ‘I'm super happy,’ said Su Meizhen, a human resources manager in Beijing, who is pregnant with her third child. ‘We won't have to pay the fine and we'll be able to get a hukou,’ she said, referring to the urban residence permit that enables families to receive benefits including sending their children to local public schools.  

China on Monday reported a sudden surge in Covid-19 infections in the country's south, with 18 new local cases on May 30 in the city of Guangzhou, causing a flurry of flight cancellation. Of the 27 new coronavirus cases reported by the national health authority in its daily updates, only 7 infections were imported, with the remainder originating in Guangdong province. Out of the 20 new locally confirmed patients on May 30, 18 were found in Guangzhou city and two in Foshan city, health authorities in Guangdong province said on Monday. As of 11:40 am, a total of 519 flights at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport were cancelled, accounting for 37% of total flights on Monday, according to aviation data provider Variflight. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, which carried 43.8 million passengers last year, was the world's busiest airport in the midst of a global pandemic. People leaving the city from airports, train stations and shuttle bus stations need to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test within three days, unless they were transiting, the city said in a statement late on Sunday. On Saturday, Guangzhou government ordered residents on five streets in the city's Liwan district to remain at home and suspended non-essential activities, while entertainment venues and markets were closed. Recent infections in the city were contracted with a fast-spreading virus strain detected in India according to genome sequencing results, Chen Bin, deputy director at the city's municipal health commission, told a press conference on Sunday. China also reported 19 new asymptomatic infections, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, on May 30, compared with 22 a day earlier. As of May 30, China had a total of 91,099 confirmed Covid-19 cases, while its death toll remained unchanged at 4,636.    

Former Hong Kong schoolteacher Tsang Yin-hung said yesterday she always believed in aiming high after setting a new record for the fastest ascent of Everest by a woman. Tsang scaled the 8,848.86-metre (29,031 feet) mountain in 25 hours and 50 minutes, a Nepal government officer who recorded her time told AFP on Thursday. The 44-year-old reached the summit of the world’s highest peak on May 23 and arrived back in Kathmandu yesterday. “I am... relaxed and happy because I set this target around four years before,” she told AFP. “I have always shared with my students and my friends that if you aim high and expect high, you can achieve high.” Tsang had tried to reach the summit earlier in May, but was stopped by poor weather conditions when she was at 8,755 metres, her guide Pemba Sherpa said. She had to return to base camp and climb up the mountain again to make her record attempt. Tsang was born in mainland China and her family moved to Hong Kong when she was 10 years old. As a child, Tsang said they lived with “no resources” and sport — which was free to participate in at her school — became her source of joy. “When I was young I used to run on the mountains, play basketball and do other sports,” she said. She started to train as a mountaineer 11 years ago and summited Everest in 2017 — the first woman from Hong Kong to achieve such a feat. In 2018, Nepali climber Phunjo Jhangmu Lama set the fastest ascent of Everest for a woman with a time of 39 hours 6 minutes. Tsang’s achievement came after Nepal issued a record 408 Everest permits for this climbing season, after last year’s was cancelled due to the pandemic. Several coronavirus cases have been reported at Everest base camp so far as Nepal battles a spike in infections. Up to 350 people have summited the mountain this spring, the tourism department said. Other records broken this season include the most ascents of Everest, by Nepali climber Kami Rita Sherpa, who broke his own record with his 25th summit. Arthur Muir, 75, became the oldest American to climb the world’s highest peak when he broke Bill Burke’s record set in 2009 at age 67.

China's cargo spacecraft, carrying supplies, equipment and propellant, docked with the space station's key module Tianhe on Sunday, the official news agency Xinhua reported. The Tianzhou-2, or "Heavenly Vessel" in Chinese, autonomously rendezvoused and docked with Tianhe at 5:01 a.m. Beijing time, Xinhua said on Sunday. It blasted off via a Long March-7 Y3 rocket at 8:55 p.m. Beijing time on Saturday from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on the southern island of Hainan, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said. With a designed life of more than 1 year, Tianzhou-2 carried supplies for future astronauts including food for the Shenzhou-12 crew which will be launched next month for a three-month stay on the station, as well as two tons of propellant. Tianzhou-2 is the second of 11 missions needed to complete China's first self-developed space station around 2022, and follows the launch of Tianhe, the first module, in late April. The three-module space station will rival the International Space Station (ISS), which is backed by countries including the United States, Russia and Japan. China was barred from participating in the ISS by the United States. The rocket's launch was postponed this month due to technical reasons, state media said. The first cargo spacecraft Tianzhou-1 was sent to refuel a space lab - Tiangong-2 - three times in 2017, as a test of the technologies needed to support construction of the space station. Both Tiangong-2 and an earlier space lab Tiangong-1 have been deorbited in recent years. Next year, China will launch the two other core modules -- Wentian and Mengtian -- using the Long March 5B, its biggest and most powerful space transport vehicle. That rocket, capable of sending 25 tonnes of payload into low Earth orbit, was a source of worry earlier in May as it re-entered the atmosphere after delivering Tianhe into orbit. Media reports warned of an uncontrolled re-entry of the rocket's core stage, reviving memories of debris from the flight of the first Long March 5B in May 2020, which damaged buildings when it landed in Ivory Coast. Remnants from the rocket finally fell harmlessly in the Indian Ocean, but China drew criticism for not being transparent about the timing of the debris re-entry and predictions of its trajectory. From June until 2022, four manned spacecraft and four cargo spacecraft will also be launched, by the smaller Long March-7 and 2F rockets, which have a maximum low Earth payload of 14 tonnes and 8.8 tonnes, respectively.

Jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was among eight democracy activists handed new prison sentences on Friday for attending protests on the 70th anniversary of the founding of communist China that were followed by a sweeping crackdown. Lai, who is already behind bars for taking part in earlier protests, was given 14 months after pleading guilty to organising an unlawful assembly on October 1, 2019. He will now have to serve a total of 20 months for his multiple protest convictions. Seven other leading activists, including 25-year-old youth campaigner Figo Chan, as well as former lawmakers Lee Cheuk-yan and Leung Kwok-hung, were also given new jail terms. Some flashed ‘victory’ hand signals on their way to court in a police van. The new sentences are the latest in a relentless and successful campaign by China to smother dissent and dismantle Hong Kong's democracy movement. The finance hub was convulsed by months of huge and often violent pro-democracy protests in 2019 in the most serious challenge to Beijing's rule since the city's 1997 handover. The clashes with police on China's October 1 National Day were some of the worst of that period. It was a vivid and embarrassing illustration of how huge swathes of Hong Kong's population seethe under Beijing's rule as the government celebrated 70 years since communist China's founding. While President Xi Jinping oversaw a huge military parade in Beijing, clashes between hardcore protests and police raged across Hong Kong that day. The march attended by the activists who were jailed on Friday remained largely peaceful. But it did not have official police permission, a requirement in Hong Kong. ‘It was naive to believe a rallying call for peaceful and rational behaviour would be enough to ensure no violence,’ district judge Amanda Woodcock said as she handed down jail sentences to the eight activists. - Successful crackdown – China has responded to the democracy rallies with a broad clampdown on Hong Kong, including the imposition of a sweeping national security law that outlaws much dissent. Hong Kong authorities on Thursday banned the annual June 4 vigil marking Beijing's 1989 Tianamen Square crackdown, with security minister John Lee warning the security law could be used against those who defy the ban. More than 10,000 people were arrested during Hong Kong's democracy protests, with around 2,500 convicted for various offences. Most of the city's prominent democracy leaders are under arrest, in jail or have fled overseas. More than 100 people, including Lai, have been charged under the security law, which carries up to life in jail. Those handed jail terms on Friday are from the more moderate wing of Hong Kong's democracy movement. Four were already serving jail sentences for taking part in protests. Many of them have spent decades advocating non-violence in their ultimately fruitless campaign for universal suffrage. Figo Chan, for example, was a key figure in the Civil Human Rights Front, the coalition that organised some of the largest rallies of 2019 when hundreds of thousands turned up. Supporters chanted ‘Add oil!’ - a Chinese phrase of encouragement - as the group were led into court on Friday. At a mitigation hearing earlier in the week, Chan accused Hong Kong's unelected leaders of failing to give citizens an avenue to voice their dissatisfaction. ‘If the government listened to people's demands, then it would not be necessary for the people to use violence to get the government to respond,’ he told the court. Lee Cheuk-yan, 63, said he had no regrets about the prospect of going to jail. ‘For over 40 years I have strived for democratic reform in China,’ he told the court. ‘This is my unrequited love, the love for my country with such a heavy heart.’ China says the clampdown and security law are needed to return stability. It has dismissed the democracy demands and says the protests were instigated by ‘foreign forces’ who want to undermine China. Many Western nations say Beijing has shredded its promise that Hong Kong could maintain certain freedoms and autonomy under a ‘One Country, Two Systems’ arrangement agreed before the city's 1997 handover.      

China yesterday hit out at the “dark history” of the US intelligence community, after President Joe Biden ordered a probe into the Covid-19 origins which threatens to set the course for relations between the world’s top economies. Washington is reviewing its diplomatic position with China on issues spanning trade, technological supremacy and rights, while it steps up efforts to hook Western democracies into a united diplomatic front against perceived Chinese aggression. The countries’ trade envoys have held “candid” phone talks on the progress of a deal plotted as a pathway out of a trade war sparked by former President Donald Trump, which saw tariffs lumped on tens of billions of dollars of the rivals’ goods. But on Wednesday, President Biden reopened a barely healed sore between the countries by ordering US intelligence agencies to report to him within 90 days on whether the Covid-19 virus first emerged in China from an animal source or from a laboratory accident. The lab-leak theory, initially trotted out by Trump then dismissed as “highly unlikely” by a delayed World Health Organisation mission to China, has resurfaced in recent days, driven by Washington. China is intensely sensitive to allegations it could have done more to stop the spread of a pandemic that has gone on to kill well over 3.4mn people and has eviscerated economies since emerging in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Beijing rejects the theory the virus may have emerged from a virology lab in Wuhan and has instead accused the US of peddling “conspiracies” and politicising the pandemic. The Biden administration’s “motive and purposes are clear”, Zhao Lijian a ministry of foreign affairs spokesman said yesterday, rejecting the need for a new investigation into the pandemic. “The dark history of the US intelligence community has long been known to the world,” he added, referring to the US’ unfounded allegations of weapons of mass destruction which led to its invasion of Iraq. Reviving the lab leak theory “is disrespectful to science...and also a disruption to the global fight against the pandemic”, Zhao said. But the idea of virus release from a Wuhan lab is gaining increasing traction in the US. Citing a US intelligence report, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that a trio from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalised with a seasonal illness in November 2019, a month before Beijing disclosed the existence of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak. The natural origin hypothesis – backed as the most likely by the WHO expert team who visited China – holds that the virus emerged in bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species. This theory was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of Sars-CoV-2. China is at pains to move on from the pandemic origin quest, driven by Western nations including Australia and the UK. Instead it is focused on its economic rebound since squashing the pandemic inside its borders. The commerce ministry yesterday welcomed trade talks with Washington which are part of a deal to end the bruising trade war. The two countries signed the so-called “phase 1” agreement in January 2020, in which Beijing pledged to increase its purchases of American products and services by at least $200bn over 2020 and 2021.

Two escaped tigers killed their keeper in China and were shot dead, state media reported, in the latest incident underlining the country's chaotic handling of dangerous animals. Tuesday's incident in central Henan province comes with authorities still hunting for one of three leopards that escaped in eastern China, in a separate case that shocked the public. The tigers belonged to a circus which had rented them out to a separate tourist attraction near the city of Nanyang for shows, Xinhua news agency said. As a staff member was feeding the big cats, they got loose and mauled the man. He later died in hospital, the report said. Local residents of the area were evacuated as authorities launched a search for the tigers, which included laying out chicken meat laced with tranquillisers, state television said. But these attempts failed and authorities shot the animals dead on Tuesday afternoon. The reports gave few other details. The problem of lax safety and abysmal animal welfare in Chinese zoos and safari parks went viral in recent weeks after the triple leopard outbreak in the coastal city of Hangzhou. The leopards escaped on April 19 -- with careless cage-cleaners blamed for letting them out -- but the Hangzhou Safari Park hid the breakout for nearly three weeks to avoid bad publicity, police in the city have said. Two of the leopards have been recaptured. Authorities launched a search for the final cat nearly a month ago, warning nearby residents to stay indoors for their safety. But no announcements have been made since, and an initial explosion of angry social media posts about the affair quickly dried up as China's internet censors apparently moved to contain criticism over the public-safety breach. Cases of dangerous zoo animals escaping and injuring or killing people happen regularly in China. An animal breeder at a zoo in eastern Anhui province was killed by a tiger on Sunday when he entered its cage without first ensuring the creature was in a secure place.

Hong Kong may soon have to throw away millions of coronavirus vaccine doses because they are approaching their expiry date and not enough people have signed up for the jabs, an official warned Tuesday. Hong Kong is one of the few places in the world fortunate enough to have secured more than enough doses to inoculate its entire population of 7.5 million people. But swirling distrust of the government as it stamps out dissent -- combined with online misinformation and a lack of urgency in the comparatively virus-free city -- has led to entrenched vaccine hesitancy and a dismal inoculation drive. On Tuesday a member of the government's vaccine task force warned that Hong Kongers "only have a three-month window" before the city's first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines go out of date. "The vaccines all have expiry dates," Thomas Tsang, a former controller of the Centre for Health Protection, told RTHK radio. "They cannot be used after the expiry date and the community vaccination centres for BioNTech will, according to present plans, cease operating after September." Tsang said it was "just not right" that Hong Kong was sitting on an unused pile of doses while the rest of the world "is scrambling for vaccines". And he warned new doses were unlikely to be delivered. "What we have is probably all we have for the rest of the year," he said. Hong Kong bought 7.5 million doses each of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and China's Sinovac. The latter has yet to be approved by the World Health Organization but was fast-tracked for use by city health regulators. It also pre-ordered 7.5 million doses of AstraZeneca jabs but scrapped that deal earlier in the year, with authorities saying they planned to use the money for second-generation vaccines next year. - Medical worker resistance -So far just 19 percent of the population has received one dose of either vaccine, while 14 percent has received two doses. Hesitancy is common even among the city's medical workers. Earlier this month, the city's Hospital Authority revealed only a third of its staff had taken the opportunity to be vaccinated. There are currently millions of unused Pfizer-BioNTech shots, which must be stored at ultra-low temperatures and have a six-month shelf life. A total of 3,263,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines have been shipped to Hong Kong so far but only 1,231,600 have been administered. Hong Kong's vaccine hesitancy comes as many nearby countries are scrambling to secure enough doses as the coronavirus wreaks havoc. In recent weeks, some Hong Kong politicians have suggested the city could look to send unused vaccines overseas if take-up does not improve. Public trust in the Hong Kong government has been at historic lows since Beijing and local authorities cracked down on dissent to end huge and often violent democracy protests that broke out in 2019. Officials have also struggled to come up with incentives to encourage vaccination in a city where long quarantine measures and economically painful social distancing rules have kept infections low. Instead officials have largely put the onus on businesses to push employees into vaccinating. Earlier this year the government announced HK$5,000 ($640) spending vouchers for all residents as a way to boost the economy. Some critics suggested the government should either link those vouchers to vaccination certificates -- or provide further cash handouts for the inoculated. However on Tuesday city leader Carrie Lam rejected that suggestion. "To offer cash or something physical to encourage vaccination shouldn't be done by the government and may even cause the opposite effect," she said.

* Chinese foreign ministry denies that staff fell ill * Report may boost calls for wider probe into origins * Article published on eve of key WHO meeting   Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before China reported the first cases of Covid-19, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a US intelligence report. The newspaper said the previously undisclosed report - which provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits - may add weight to calls for a broader investigation into whether the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from the labouratory. The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence expressed a range of views about the strength of the report's supporting evidence, with one unnamed person saying it needed ‘further investigation and additional corroboration.’ The first cases of what would eventually be known as Covid-19 were reported at the end of December 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the advanced labouratory specialising in coronavirus research is located. Chinese scientists and officials have consistently rejected the lab leak hypothesis, saying SARS-CoV-2 could have been circulating in other regions before it hit Wuhan, and might have even entered China from another country via imported frozen food shipments or wildlife trading. China's foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said on Monday that it was ‘completely untrue’ that three members of staff at WIV had fallen ill. ‘The United States continues to hype up the lab leak theory,’ he said. ‘Does it care about traceability or is it just trying to distract attention?’ The Journal report came on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization's decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19. Asked about the report, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said via email that the organisation's technical teams were now deciding on the next steps. He said further study was needed into the role of animal markets as well as the lab leak hypothesis. A US National Security Council spokeswoman had no comment on the report but said the Biden administration continued to have ‘serious questions about the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, including its origins within the Peoples Republic of China.’ She said the US government was working with the WHO and other member states to support an expert-driven evaluation of the pandemic's origins ‘that is free from interference or politicization.’ ‘We're not going to make pronouncements that prejudge an ongoing WHO study into the source of SARS-CoV-2, but we've been clear that sound and technically credible theories should be thoroughly evaluated by international experts,’ she said. A joint study into the origins of Covid-19 by the WHO and China published at the end of March said it was ‘extremely unlikely’ that it had escaped from a lab. But China was accused of failing to disclose raw data on early Covid-19 cases to the WHO team, and the United States, the European Union and other Western countries called on Beijing to grant ‘full access’ to independent experts. A State Department fact sheet released near the end of the Trump administration said ‘the US government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illnesses.’ It did not say how many researchers.  

Twenty-one people were killed after hail, freezing rain and high winds hit runners taking part in a cross-country mountain race in China, state media said yesterday. The extreme weather struck a high-altitude section of the 100km race held in the scenic Yellow River Stone Forest in northwestern Gansu province on Saturday afternoon. Among the dead were elite Chinese long-distance runners, local media reported. Official news agency Xinhua confirmed that 21 of the 172 participants had died, citing the local rescue command headquarters. The other 151 are now safe, according to state media. Baiyin city mayor Zhang Xuchen said that at around midday Saturday a section of the rugged ultramarathon course — between kilometres 20 and 31 — was “suddenly affected by disastrous weather”. “In a short period of time, hailstones and ice rain suddenly fell in the local area, and there were strong winds. The temperature sharply dropped,” Zhang said. Shortly after receiving messages for help, marathon organisers dispatched a rescue team. At around 2pm, weather conditions worsened and the race was called off, Zhang said. The victims included top domestic marathon runners Liang Jing and Huang Guanjun, local media reported. Liang had won multiple Chinese ultramarathons in recent years. Huang, who was deaf-mute, won the men’s hearing-impaired marathon at the 2019 National Paralympic Games held in Tianjin. Father-of-one Lu Zhengyi, who took part in several marathons, was also reported by local media as one of the victims. “As the event’s organiser, we feel a deep sense of guilt and self-blame, express our deep mourning for the victims and deep condolences to their families and the injured runners,” Zhang said. The race, backed by the Baiyin city government and the Chinese Athletic Association, has been held for four successive years. Xinhua reported that some of the runners suffered from hypothermia, and Zhang said earlier that eight people were being treated for minor injuries and were in a stable condition. Video footage broadcast on state media showed emergency rescue personnel in combat fatigues carrying flashlights as they climbed through the rocky terrain at night. Some marathon participants, wrapped in heavy-duty blankets, were filmed being put on stretchers by rescuers. Photos published by Chinese media also showed a group of runners huddled together on the mountainside, some wrapped in insulation blankets. “My whole body was soaked through, including my shoes and socks. I couldn’t stand up straight because of the wind, I was very worried I’d be blown over. The cold became more and more unbearable,” one survivor was quoted as saying in local media. “While descending the mountain, I was already experiencing hypothermia symptoms.” Another survivor was quoted as saying most victims were “heroes” of the sport who were frontrunners in the race. “As soon as I closed my eyes, I saw those who had fallen on the mountain,” the anonymous runner said.  Screenshots of messages sent in the race participants’ chat group were published in local media. “A few people have already lost consciousness and are foaming at the mouth,” wrote one unidentified participant.”Come and save us, quick!” Chinese social media erupted in mourning and outrage yesterday, as users blamed organisers for perceived failings in contingency planning.

Twenty-one people were killed after hail, freezing rain and high winds hit runners taking part in a 100-kilometre cross-country mountain race in China, state media said Sunday. The extreme weather hit a high-altitude section of the race held in the Yellow River Stone Forest near Baiyin city in northwestern Gansu province Saturday afternoon. Among the dead were elite Chinese long-distance runners, local media reported. State broadcaster CCTV on Sunday reported the final missing competitor had been found having "already lost their vital signs", citing the local rescue command headquarters. "This suggests that this incident caused 21 deaths in total," CCTV said. City officials had earlier confirmed 20 deaths and one person missing at a briefing earlier on Sunday. Baiyin city mayor Zhang Xuchen said that at around midday a section of the ultramarathon course -- between kilometres 20 and 31 -- was "suddenly affected by disastrous weather". "In a short period of time, hailstones and ice rain suddenly fell in the local area, and there were strong winds. The temperature sharply dropped," Zhang said. Shortly after receiving messages seeking help from some participants, marathon organisers dispatched a rescue team that managed to save 18 of the 172 participants. At around 2pm, weather conditions worsened and the race was immediately called off as local authorities sent more rescuers to help, Zhang said, adding that provincial authorities will further investigate its cause. The victims included top domestic marathon runners Liang Jing and Huang Guanjun, local media reported, citing a friend of Huang's and Wei Pulong, Liang's coach. Liang had won multiple Chinese ultramarathons in recent years. Huang, who was deaf-mute, won the men's hearing-impaired marathon at the 2019 National Paralympic Games held in Tianjin. Marathon organisers confirmed his death to a friend, who was cited in local media. State news agency Xinhua reported that some of the runners suffered from hypothermia, and Zhang said earlier that eight people were being treated for minor injuries in hospital and were in a stable condition. Video footage broadcast on state media showed emergency rescue personnel in combat fatigues carrying flashlights as they climbed through the rocky terrain at night. Some marathon participants, wrapped in heavy-duty blankets, were filmed being put on to a stretcher by rescuers. "My whole body was soaked through, including my shoes and socks. I couldn't stand up straight because of the wind, I was very worried I'd be blown over. The cold became more and more unbearable," one survivor was quoted as saying in local media. "While descending the mountain, I was already experiencing hypothermia symptoms." Temperatures in the mountainous terrain dropped further overnight, Xinhua said, making search and rescue "more difficult". Gansu, one of China's poorest regions, borders Mongolia to the north and Xinjiang to the west. Deadly floods and landslides have hit the province in the past, with mudslides reportedly killing well over 1,000 people in one town in 2010. It is also prone to earthquakes. Yellow River Stone Forest is famous for its rugged mountain scenery marked by stone stalagmites and pillars, and is used as a location in many Chinese television shows and movies, according to the China Daily. Its rock formations are believed to be four billion years old, the Daily said. Marathons and extreme sports have seen a surge in popularity among China's middle class in recent years. However, Chinese marathons have often been plagued by cheating scandals. In 2018, more than 250 runners were disqualified from the Shenzhen half-marathon after they were found to be wearing fake bibs or have taken shortcuts. So far, a handful of runners have been handed lifetime bans by Chinese sporting authorities for cheating.

A remote-controlled Chinese motorised rover drove down the ramp of a landing capsule on Saturday and onto the surface of the Red Planet, making China the first nation to orbit, land and deploy a land vehicle on its inaugural mission to Mars. Zhurong, named after a mythical Chinese god of fire, drove down to the surface of Mars at 10:40 a.m. Beijing time (0240 GMT), according to a post on the rover's official Chinese social media account. China this month joined the United States as the only nations to deploy land vehicles on Mars. The former Soviet Union landed a craft in 1971, but it lost communication seconds later. The 240-kg (530-pound) Zhurong, which has six scientific instruments including a high-resolution topography camera, will study the planet's surface soil and atmosphere. Powered by solar energy, Zhurong will also look for signs of ancient life, including any subsurface water and ice, using a ground-penetrating radar during its 90-day exploration of the Martian surface. China's uncrewed Tianwen-1 spacecraft blasted off from the southern Chinese island of Hainan in July last year. After more than six months in transit, Tianwen-1 reached the Red Planet in February where it had been in orbit since. On May 15, the landing capsule carrying the rover separated from Tianwen-1 and touched down on a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia. The first images taken by the rover were released by the Chinese space agency on Wednesday. Tianwen-1 was one of three probes that reached Mars in February. US rover Perseverance touched down on Feb. 18 in a huge depression called Jezero Crater, more than 2,000 km (1,240 miles) from Utopia Planitia. Hope - the third spacecraft to arrive in February - is not designed to land. Launched by the United Arab Emirates, it is orbiting above Mars, gathering data on its weather and atmosphere. Perseverance and Zhurong are among three robotic rovers operating on Mars. The third is NASA's Curiosity, which landed in 2012. NASA's InSight, which arrived on the surface of the planet in 2018 to study its interior, is a stationary module.  

One of China’s tallest skyscrapers was evacuated yesterday after it began to shake, sending panicked shoppers scampering to safety in the southern city of Shenzhen. The near 980ft high SEG Plaza inexplicably began to shake at around 1pm, prompting an evacuation of people inside while pedestrians looked on open-mouthed from the streets outside. The building was sealed shut as of 2.40pm, according to local media reports. Completed in 2000, the tower is home to a major electronics market as well as various offices in the downtown of one of China’s fastest-growing cities. Emergency management officials are investigating what caused the tower in Shenzhen’s Futian district to wobble, according to a post on the Twitter-like Weibo platform. “After checking and analysing the data of various earthquake monitoring stations across the city, there was no earthquake in Shenzhen yesterday,” the statement said. The district said in a later statement that everyone inside had been safely evacuated and that experts had found “no cracks in the ground surrounding the building and no pieces of outer wall had fallen or been damaged.” It was not immediately clear how authorities will handle a dangerous tower of its scale in the heart of a city of over 12mn people. Bystander videos published by local media on Weibo showed the skyscraper shaking on its foundations as hundreds of terrified pedestrians ran away outside. “SEG has been completely evacuated,” wrote one Weibo user in a caption to a video of hundreds of people milling about on a wide shopping street near the tower. The building is named after the semiconductor and electronics manufacturer Shenzhen Electronics Group, whose offices are based in the complex. It is the 18th tallest tower in Shenzhen, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat skyscraper database. Chinese authorities last year banned the construction of skyscrapers taller than 500 metres, adding to height restrictions already enforced in some cities such as Beijing. The new guidelines for architects, urban planners and developers aimed to “highlight Chinese characteristics” and also banned tacky “copycat” buildings modelled after world landmarks. Five of the world’s tallest skyscrapers are located in China, including the world’s second-tallest building, the Shanghai Tower, which stands at 632 metres. Shenzhen is a sprawling metropolis in southern China, close to Hong Kong, which has a booming homegrown tech manufacturing scene. Many Chinese tech giants, including Tencent and Huawei, have chosen the city to host their headquarters. It is also home to the world’s fourth-tallest skyscraper, the 599-metre Ping An Finance Centre. Building collapses are not rare in China, where lax building standards and breakneck urbanisation lead to constructions being thrown up in haste. Last May, a five-storey quarantine hotel in the south-eastern city of Quanzhou collapsed due to shoddy construction, killing 29. The devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake caused over 69,000 deaths and the disaster ignited a storm of public controversy over poorly constructed school buildings — dubbed ‘tofu dregs’ — which collapsed killing thousands of students.

One of China's tallest skyscrapers was evacuated Tuesday after it began to shake, sending panicked shoppers scampering to safety in the southern city of Shenzhen. The near 300-metre (980 ft) high SEG Plaza inexplicably began to shake at around 1pm, prompting an evacuation of people inside while pedestrians looked on open-mouthed from the streets outside. The building was sealed shut as of 2:40pm, according to local media reports. Completed in 2000, the tower is home to a major electronics market as well as various offices in the downtown of one of China's fastest-growing cities. Emergency management officials are investigating what caused the tower in Shenzhen's Futian district to wobble, according to a post on the Twitter-like Weibo platform. ‘After checking and analysing the data of various earthquake monitoring stations across the city, there was no earthquake in Shenzhen today,’ the statement said. ‘The cause of the shaking is being verified by various departments.’ It was not immediately clear how authorities will handle a dangerous building of its scale in the heart of a city of over 12 million people. Bystander videos published by local media on Weibo showed the skyscraper shaking on its foundations as hundreds of terrified pedestrians ran away outside. ‘SEG has been completely evacuated,’ wrote one Weibo user in a caption to a video of hundreds of people milling about on a wide shopping street near the tower. The tower is named after the semiconductor and electronics manufacturer Shenzhen Electronics Group, whose offices are based in the building. It is the 18th tallest tower in Shenzhen, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat skyscraper database. Chinese authorities last year banned the construction of skyscrapers taller than 500 metres, adding to height restrictions already enforced in some cities such as Beijing. The new guidelines for architects, urban planners and developers aimed to ‘highlight Chinese characteristics’ and also banned tacky ‘copycat’ buildings modelled after world landmarks. Five of the world's tallest skyscrapers are located in China, including the world's second-tallest building, the Shanghai Tower, which stands at 632 metres. Shenzhen is a sprawling metropolis in southern China, close to Hong Kong, which has a booming homegrown tech manufacturing scene. Many Chinese tech giants, including Tencent and Huawei, have chosen the city to host their headquarters. It is home to the world's fourth-tallest skyscraper, the 599-metre Ping An Finance Centre. Building collapses are not rare in China, where lax building standards and breakneck urbanisation lead to constructions being thrown up in haste. Last May, a five-storey quarantine hotel in the south-eastern city of Quanzhou collapsed due to shoddy construction, killing 29. The devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake caused over 69,000 deaths. The disaster ignited a storm of public controversy over poorly constructed school buildings -- dubbed 'tofu dregs' -- which collapsed and killed thousands of students.    

China's Zhurong rover touched down on Mars early Saturday, state media reported, a triumph for Beijing's increasingly bold space ambitions and a history-making feat for a nation on its first-ever Martian mission. The lander carrying Zhurong completed the treacherous descent through the Martian atmosphere using a parachute to navigate the "seven minutes of terror" as it is known, aiming for a vast northern lava plain known as the Utopia Planitia. The mission "successfully landed in the pre-selected area", state broadcaster CCTV said, while the official Xinhua news agency cited the China National Space Administration (CNSA) in confirming the touchdown. It makes China the first country to carry out an orbiting, landing and roving operation during its first mission to Mars -- a feat unmatched by the only other two nations to reach the Red Planet, the US and Russia. Zhurong, named after a Chinese mythical fire god, arrives a few months behind America's latest probe to Mars -- Perseverance -- as the show of technological might between the two superpowers plays out beyond the bounds of Earth. Six-wheeled, solar-powered and roughly 240 kilograms, the Chinese rover is on a quest to collect and analyse rock samples from Mars' surface. It is expected to spend around three months there. The launch of China's Tianwen-1 Mars probe which carried the rover last July marked a major milestone in China's space programme. The spacecraft entered Mars' orbit in February and after days of silence state media announced it had reached the "crucial touchdown stage" on Friday. The complicated landing process has been called the "seven minutes of terror" because it happens faster than radio signals can reach Earth from Mars, meaning communications are limited. Several US, Russian and European attempts to land rovers on Mars have failed in the past, most recently in 2016 with the crash-landing of the Schiaparelli joint Russian-European spacecraft. The latest successful arrival came in February, when US space agency NASA landed its rover Perseverance, which has since been exploring the planet. The US rover launched a small robotic helicopter on Mars which was the first ever powered flight on another planet. The country has come a long way in its race to catch up with the United States and Russia, whose astronauts and cosmonauts have decades of experience in space exploration. China successfully launched the first module of its new space station last month with hopes of having it crewed by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the Moon. Last week a segment of the Chinese Long March 5B rocket disintegrated over the Indian Ocean in an uncontrolled landing back to Earth. That drew criticism from the United States and other nations for a breach of etiquette governing the return of space debris to earth, with officials saying the remnants had the potential to endanger life and property.

* Taiwan reports record daily rise in domestic infections * Alert level raised in capital, many venues to close * Spike in cases a jolt after pandemic kept well under control * Government to watch stock market reaction closely Taiwan raised its coronavirus alert level on Saturday in the capital, Taipei, and the city around it, bringing curbs for a period of two weeks that will shut many venues and restrict gatherings in the wake of 180 new domestic infections. The new rules will not mean offices, schools or restaurants have to close, but will cause the shutdown of cinemas and other entertainment spots, while limiting family get-togethers to five people indoors and 10 outdoors. For the first time, masks will have to be worn outdoors. Taipei's government has already ordered bars, nightclubs and similar venues to shut. Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said a "level of risk" in certain hot spots, such as Taipei's gritty Wanhua district, had spurred the decision to raise the alert level. "Only by doing this can infections be dealt with and controlled," he told reporters. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je urged people to stay home as much as possible, adding that schools should teach online. "During this time, if you have nothing on, then stay at home and don't go out, and if you do, wear a mask to reduce infection from droplets," said Ko, a doctor by training. -President Tsai Ing-wen's spokesman said she would reduce the number of "unnecessary meetings" or public events. The presidential office is close to Wanhua. The rising community infections unnerved the stock market this week, but at the same news conference, Premier Su Tseng-chang reiterated that the island's economic fundamentals remain good. Deputy Finance Minister Frank Juan told Reuters authorities would watch market reaction on Monday, adding that he did not rule out calling a meeting of the National Stabilisation Fund, which the government can use to smooth large fluctuations. Investors should act rationally, he said, pointing out that only a few sectors would be affected by the curbs, such as tourism, rather than the island's crucial foreign trade. The new restrictions do not apply to the chip-manufacturing hub of Hsinchu, and are unlikely to affect exports of semiconductors, a global shortage of which has shut some car factories. Taiwan has millions of vaccine doses on order from Moderna Inc and AstraZeneca Plc, though only a small number have arrived from the latter due to global shortages and vaccination rates remain low. More vaccines will start arriving next month, Tsai has said. Since the pandemic began, Taiwan has reported fewer than 1,500 cases among a population of about 24 million, most of them imported from abroad, but a recent rise in community transmissions has spooked residents. The island has never gone into a full lockdown and its people are used to life carrying on near normal, despite the pandemic ranging in many other parts of the world.

Two tornadoes that struck central and eastern China killed at least 10 people and injured more than 300, authorities said Saturday. Violent winds of more than 100 kilometres per hour blasted the central city of Wuhan on Friday night. Six people died and more than 200 were injured, authorities said, adding that around 30 homes had collapsed. Vehicles were crushed by falling objects, trees uprooted, buildings partially destroyed and electricity pylons felled, leaving more than 26,000 homes without power. The gale damaged two construction cranes, one of which toppled onto the site below, causing significant damage. In Suzhou, near Shanghai, another tornado with winds of more than 200 kilometres per hour wreaked havoc. Four people were killed and one remains missing, according to local authorities. Images shared on social media showed a black whirlwind which left a trail of destruction in its wake. Earlier in May, a windstorm caused the deaths of 11 people in a different town also close to Shanghai.