China locks down city of 9 million amidst biggest covid outbreak in 2 years

News Network
March 11, 2022

March 11: Chinese authorities sent a northeastern city of nine million people into lockdown on Friday as the country has seen daily COVID-19 cases top 1,000 this week for the first time since the early days of the pandemic, which originated in Wuhan.

The residents of Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, have been ordered to stay at home while all non-essential businesses and stores are shuttered, state-run media said on Friday. Schools will be closed and all transportation services will be suspended under the indefinite shutdown, the state-run Global Times reported.

One person from each household will be allowed to go out once every two days to buy supplies as the city undergoes a scheduled three rounds of mass testing.

China's National Health Commission reported 1,369 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, with Jilin Province one of the hardest-hit areas during a recent surge driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Other cities have also started taking measures with targeted lockdowns, including Shanghai, which ordered all schools to move to online classes starting on Saturday.

The latest outbreak is putting China's "zero-COVID" approach to controlling the spread of the virus to its sternest test yet. The government has managed to limit outbreaks through mass testing, shutdowns and tight border controls.

China kept cases to a minimum during the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in February, using a closed-loop system that kept all participants separated from the general public.

However, the Omicron variant has proved extraordinarily difficult to contain and many countries have shifted towards a strategy of opening up and living with the virus even as case counts skyrocket.

Hong Kong, which has also followed a zero-tolerance playbook, has been facing an "unprecedented health crisis" of soaring case counts and the world's highest COVID death rates in recent weeks.

On Friday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang defended China's "coordinated approach to COVID response and economic and social development" while answering questions at a press conference. Li said that officials would work to make the response "more scientific and targeted based on the current situation," but did not offer a timeline for any changes.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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News Network
November 15,2024

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Union minister Amit Shah on Friday, November 15, said PM Narendra Modi will amend the Waqf Act despite opposition from leaders like Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar.

"Modi ji wants to change the Waqf Board law, but Uddhav ji, Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule are opposing it," Shah said, addressing a rally at Umarkhed in Maharashtra's Yavatmal district.

"Uddhav ji, listen carefully, you all can protest as much as you want, but Modi ji will amend the Waqf Act," he said. Shah said there are two camps in the November 20 Maharashtra assembly polls, one of 'Pandavas' represented by the BJP-led Mahayuti and the other of 'Kauravas' represented by Maha Vikas Aghadi.

"Uddhav Thackeray claims that his Shiv Sena is the real one. Can the real Shiv Sena go against renaming Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar? Can the real Shiv Sena go against renaming Ahmednagar to Ahilyanagar? The real Shiv Sena stands with the BJP," Shah said.

"Rahul Baba used to say that his government would credit money in the accounts of the people instantly. You were unable to fulfil your promises in Himachal, Karnataka, and Telangana," he said.

Shah said the Mahayuti alliance has promised that women will get Rs 2,100 per month under the Ladki Bahin Yojana. "Kashmir is an integral part of India and no power in the world can snatch it away from us," Shah said.

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News Network
November 19,2024

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Gone are the days of chaotic group chats and endless back-and-forth messaging. Say hello to seamless event planning with WhatsApp's new event feature—your ultimate tool for stress-free gatherings!

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