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CNN Obtained a Confidential Documents Disclosing China's Early Mishandling on COVID-19

One year after the first COVID-19 case in Hubei, CNN published an exclusive report on the receipt of 117 pages of a confidential internal document today, from an anonymous source in Hubei. The report shows that China underestimated and concealed the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, and sent misleading information to the public during the early stages of the pandemic.

The report shows that as early as February 10, Hubei province had 5,918 new cases including clinical diagnoses, more than twice the number of confirmed cases announced publicly in China on that day. Hubai categorised these almost 6,000 reported cases into 2345 confirmed cases, 1772 clinically diagnosed cases and 1,796 suspected cases. However, the province did not disclose the number of clinically diagnosed cases by the doctors.

#COVID19 #China #Wuhan #Hubei #CNN

Source: The Stand News #Dec01
https://bit.ly/2WfgnMF
Confidential document says Beijing refuses to fund local CDC, bureaucracy causes collapse of the medical system and loss of epidemic prevention and fighting function

The initial outbreak of Wuhan COVID-19 in China has spread globally. The leaked documents received by CNN not only reflect China's mishandling of the epidemic but also reveal that China's health care system has been riddled with problems for a prolonged period of time and that when the epidemic escalated, officials and medical personnel generally took it lightly, further contributing to the global outbreak of the virus.

After SARS in 2003, the Chinese authorities spent 167 million USD (about 1.3 billion HKD) to set up a notification system. Theoretically, the system allows regional hospitals or disease prevention centres to directly report outbreaks to the central government and share relevant information with the entire country. However, according to a report in the paper, the system itself slowed down, and other bureaucratic constraints have further impeded information flow.

Compared to major cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, Wuhan's medical system received relatively few resources. An audit report completed last October pointed out that Hubei Province's disease prevention centre was underfunded. The lack of proper testing equipment and motivated medical staff, especially in the early stages of the outbreak when they still used SARS-era equipment, was completely neglected by the Chinese Bureaucracy.

#China #SARS #COVID19 #Pandemic #Epidemic #WuhanVirus #CNN #MedicalSystem #MedicalStaff

Source: Apple Daily #Dec01

https://hk.appledaily.com/international/20201201/BPEWL3L7FZC3RFGNWLBEWQ5P7M/
#CNN Exclusive : Reported leak at Chinese nuclear power facility, 130km from Hong Kong

Source: CNN #Jun14

Read more
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https://t.me/guardiansofhongkong/30088
#CNN Exclusive : Reported leak at Chinese nuclear power facility, 130km from Hong Kong

//The #US government has spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant, after a French company that part owns and helps operate it warned of an "imminent #RadiologicalThreat," according to US officials and documents reviewed by CNN.

The warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation detection outside the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in #Guangdong province in order to avoid having to shut it down, according to a letter from Framatome the French company to the US Department of Energy obtained by CNN.

#Framatome had reached out to the US in order to obtain a waiver that would allow them to share American technical assistance in order to resolve the issue at the Chinese plant. There are only two reasons why this waiver would be granted, and one is an "imminent radiological threat," the same verbiage used in the June 8 memo.

The memo claims the Chinese limit was increased to exceed French standards, yet it remains unclear how that compares to US limits.

"It is not surprising that the French would reach out," according to Cheryl Rofer, a nuclear scientist who retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2001. "In general, this sort of thing is not extraordinary, particularly if they think the country they are contacting has some special ability to help."

"But #China likes to project that everything is just fine, all the time," she added.

...the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant published a statement on its website Sunday night local time, maintaining that environmental readings for both the plant and its surrounding area were "normal."...//

Read the full article:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/14/politics/china-nuclear-reactor-leak-us-monitoring/index.html

Source: CNN #Jun14

#Taishan #NuclearPowerPlant #MadeinChina #NuclearCrisis #Radioactivity #Leak
#Newspaper
#NationalSecurityLaw Charges Over #AppleDaily Editors and Executives Raise Concern Over Hongkongers' Situation Across the World

The Hong Kong police arrest of #AppleDaily senior staff on June 17, 2021 has been widely reported by news outlets across the world. 

On June 19, the newspaper's editor-in-chief #RayLaw and #NextDigital CEO #CheungKimHung were mentioned in court for national security charges and were remanded afterwards. The next trial will take place in August 2021.

June 20, 2021 marks the 26th anniversary of the establishment of Apple Daily in Hong Kong. It is the only pro-democracy Chinese-language newspaper in print in the city.

===

#Reuters

//Five hundred Hong Kong police officers sifted through reporters’ computers and notebooks at pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily on Thursday, the first case in which authorities have cited media articles as potentially violating the national security law.

“This is a blatant attack on the editorial side of Apple Daily,” Mark Simon, an adviser to Lai who is outside Hong Kong, told Reuters. “They’re arresting the top editorial folks.”

Asked how long he thinks the newspaper can survive, Simon said: “They decide, not us,” referring to authorities.//

Full article:
https://www.reuters.com/article/hongkong-security-apple-daily/update-2-hks-apple-daily-says-police-arrest-five-directors-in-latest-blow-to-tycoon-jimmy-lai-idUSL2N2NZ006

=====

#TheGuardian

//The raids were condemned by journalism and human rights groups.

Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the arrests destroyed “any remaining fiction that Hong Kong supports freedom of the press”.

“China, which controls Hong Kong, may be able to eliminate the paper, which it sees as an annoying critic, but only at a steep price to be paid by the people of Hong Kong, who had enjoyed decades of free access to information.”//

Full article:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/17/hong-kong-police-arrest-editor-in-chief-of-apple-daily-newspaper-in-morning-raids

====

#CNN

//Press freedoms are a fundamental right guaranteed by Hong Kong's Basic Law, the city's mini-constitution. But experts have worried about the usage of the national security law, and there have been indications of pressures on other media in the city. 

A recent ranking of worldwide press freedoms, meanwhile, indicates that the environment in Hong Kong has deteriorated. The international watchdog Reporters Without Borders — which qualifies such freedoms based on data on abuse and acts of violence against journalists along with a questionnaire to experts — ranked Hong Kong 80 out of 180 countries for press freedom, down from 18 out of 138 in 2002.//

Full article:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/16/media/apple-daily-arrests-intl-hnk/index.html

=====

#Bloomberg

//“Hong Kong has been left with little free speech under the national security law, which is really aimed at silencing all dissent,” said Victoria Hui, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. “Beijing has reined in Hong Kong and will continue to take whatever it takes to silence any dissenting voices.”

In a letter to readers on Thursday afternoon, Apple Daily said police officers confiscated a “large number of items,” including the computers of 38 journalists, over the course of a five-hour search of the company’s offices.

The newspaper said it now “faces an unprecedented crackdown by the regime,” but vowed its staff would be “standing firm” despite the growing pressure.

“Hong Kong’s press freedom is now hanging by a thread,” the letter said. “Though we are facing a sweeping clampdown on our publication, the staff of Apple Daily will hold fast to our duties faithfully and press on till the end to see the arrival of dawn.”//

Full article:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-16/hong-kong-arrests-apple-daily-editor-on-security-law-scmp-says

#PressFreedom #PoliceState #Censorship #PoliticalProsecution

Image: Stand News
How Taiwan is trying to defend against a cyber 'World War III'

As China steps up military pressure on Taiwan, the self-governing island is preparing for the next big frontier of warfare: crippling cyberattacks.

Taiwan's head of cybersecurity told CNN Business this month that it is using dramatic measures to guard against technological vulnerabilities — including employing roughly two dozen computer experts to deliberately attack the government's systems and help it defend against what Taiwanese authorities estimate are some 20 million to 40 million cyberattacks every month.

Taiwan says it has been able to defend against the overwhelming majority of attacks. Successful breaches number in the hundreds, while only a handful are what the government classifies as "serious."

Source: CNN #Jul24

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/23/tech/taiwan-china-cybersecurity-intl-hnk/index.html

#Taiwan #Cyber #WorldWar #CNN
CCTV Again Questions the US Having "an Ulterior Motive" for Joining Wuhan Military World in 2019 Without Seeking Gold

With more than 200 million COVID-19 infections, the whole world is trying to trace the source of the pandemic. While some in the US have suspected the virus was the leakage from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China continues to wage a public opinion war, questioning the US to be the source of the virus. Following 25 million signatures collected by the Chinese tabloid Global Times, accusing US Fort Detrick laboratory of leaking the virus, official China media CCTV published another article on the 11th on the "Wuhan Military World theory", which proposed that a US athlete joining the game to be the "patient zero" and had transmitted the virus to China.

However, foreign media, such as CNN, has dismissed this claim. China-labelled "Patient zero" Maatje Benassi said that she has never been diagnosed in COVID-19 but has become a talking point of Chinese netizens, with her home address posted on the internet. "It's like waking up from a bad dream going into a nightmare day after day", she said.

Source: Stand News #Aug12

https://bit.ly/387UW67

#COVID19 #WuhanMilitaryWorld #WuhanInstituteOfVirology #FortDetrick #PatientZero #MaatjeBenassi #GlobalTimes #CCTV #CNN #China #US
The 1st Female Reporter Interviewing Taliban has Fled from Afghanistan, "Fear the Taliban as the people are"

Beheshta Arghand, a female Afghan television anchor at TOLO, had a one-on-one interview opportunity with a core member of Taliban representative, Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad. The interview had become global news and was referred to as one of the Taliban propaganda projects to create an enlightened and gentle image. However, Arghand escaped from Afghanistan with several family members last Tuesday.

Arghand revealed to CNN Business on WhatsApp, describing her past two weeks experience in Afghanistan and the fear of her as well as millions of other Afghan people regarding the Taliban.

Arghand said the interview with Hemad was challenging, but she did it for Afghan women. "I told myself, 'One of us must start ... If we stay in our houses or are not in our offices, they will claim the ladies don't want to work,' but I said to myself, 'Start working!'" She expressed to a Taliban member that Afghan women want their rights, want to work, want to and must integrate into society, as "this is our right."

Source: Stand News #Aug31

https://bit.ly/3ktcf8Q

#Taliban #Afghanistan #BeheshtaArghand #TOLO #MawlawiAbdulhaqHemad #CNN
Japanese Defence Minister: Firmly Defend Senkaku Islands Territory, Taiwan is Important in Japan’s Energy Supply Lifeline

Japanese Minister of Defence Kishi Nobuo indicated in an interview with CNN that the Senkaku Islands, China-called “Diaoyu Islands”, is “undoubtedly the land of Japan”, and Japan would resolutely defend the territory while facing threats from China. He also said Taiwan is very important to Japan -- anything happening in Taiwan could directly affect Japan. The Japanese government will closely monitor Taiwan’s issues in a crisis management mode.

CNN: Kishi's speech is like preparing for a potential Sino-Japanese showdown

Kishi indicated that when facing China's actions in Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands) and in the East China Sea, the Japanese government has already stated their determination to maintain the territory, and the number of Coast Guard ships dispatched is also more than that of Chinese ships. He stated there is no dispute of the Senkaku Islands problem existing between Japan and other countries.

Source: Stand News #Sep17

https://bit.ly/3Bu8x4U

#Japan #China #CNN #SenkakuIslands #DiaoyuIslands #Territory #Taiwan #EastChinaSea #KishiNobuo