First Covid-19 case happened in November, China government records show - report
Earliest case detected on 17 November, weeks before authorities acknowledged new virus, says Chinese media
The first case of someone suffering from Covid-19 can be traced back to 17 November, according to media reports on unpublished Chinese government data.
The report, in the South China Morning Post, said Chinese authorities had identified at least 266 people who contracted the virus last year and who came under medical surveillance, and the earliest case was 17 November – weeks before authorities announced the emergence of the new virus.
The Chinese government was widely criticised over attempts to cover up the outbreak in the early weeks, including crackdowns on doctors who tried to warn colleagues about a new Sars-like virus which was emerging in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province
The Saudi royal family appear unaware of the dangers of settling scores among themselves
The kingdom was never the pool of tranquillity that its rulers have claimed – it’s history has been one of coup and counter-coupRobert Fisk
Purges, interrogation, claims of torture, accusations of treason, suspicion of murder, an insane war in Yemen and ruinous plans for a “reformed” kingdom, all supported by the US and the west and an often fawning media. So what’s new?
Poor Mohammed bin Salman is surely getting a bum rap. Far from being a frightening and uncontrollable new autocrat in the Gulf – purging his closest relatives, locking up his rivals, and embarking on a ruinous conflict in Yemen – he is following a familiar path in the history of his country. Saudi Arabia was ever a place of coup and counter-coup, of Islamist fury and fear of assassination. Come on, folks, let’s give MBS a break.
Behind Modi’s anti-Muslim policies in IndiaAssam’s excluded non-citizens
by Pierre Daum
We drove west for two hours from Assam’s political, cultural and business capital, Guwahati, following the course of the Brahmaputra river, which rises in the Himalayas and eventually reaches the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh. Assam is one of the smallest of India’s 29 federal states and among its least populous (35 million out of a 1.35 billion, 2.6%). After 100km of increasingly built-up countryside, a sign pointed us to the village of Matia.
The day before, a young anthropologist who had signed up as our guide abruptly withdrew, insisting it was too dangerous: ‘The police are everywhere. If I get caught with a journalist near the camp, I could end up in prison and my life would be over.’ Directed by a Muslim teacher we picked up in Matia, who asked us to withhold his name, we drove on. We had been warned the location was hard to find.
Coronavirus in the UK: NHS faces perfect healthcare storm
The National Health Service has been creaking at the seams for years. Financial cuts and failed personnel policies have left it in a moribund state. All told, it augurs ill for its ability to deal with a pandemic.
It may be hard to believe, but there was a time when the UK's National Health Service (NHS) was held up as a beacon of equitable and universal health care coverage, funded from taxation and free at the point of use.
But these days the NHS, cherished as a "national treasure" and the "envy of the world" by many proponents, is bedridden and hooked up to a life-support system.
For years the system has been underfunded, understaffed and underequipped. Successive governments made lofty promises to overhaul the NHS financially and structurally, but more often than not failed to follow through.
How Fox News misled viewers about the coronavirus
Updated 0121 GMT (0921 HKT) March 13, 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic gripped the country over the last several weeks, television viewers — especially those supportive of President Donald Trump —- had one place they could go to for some sense of solace: Fox News.
"If you are over the mass hysteria, if you're over politicizing and weaponizing of the coronavirus, you are not alone," Sean Hannity, the highest-rated host on Fox News, assured the network's prime time audience this week.
Indeed, over the past several weeks, top hosts and personalities on the conservative cable news network downplayed concerns about the virus, baselessly accusing credible news organizations of overhyping the crisis to hurt Trump politically.
Chelsea Manning case: Judge orders release from prison
Former US army intelligence analyst and Wikileaks source Chelsea Manning has been released from prison.
Manning was remanded for refusing to testify in an inquiry into Wikileaks. She had been held in a detention centre in Virginia since last May.
She was scheduled to appear in court on Friday, but the judge ruled that it was no longer necessary for her to testify.
Manning was found guilty in 2013 of charges including espionage for leaking secret military files to Wikileaks.
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