#Newspaper

Trump considers retaliation against China and the WHO after claiming that he has seen evidence that proves the virus originated from a Chinese lab

//Despite warnings from scientists and intelligence professionals that the US may never know the precise origin of the virus...Trump officials have been pushing the US intelligence community to determine the exact origins of the coronavirus outbreak

//The intelligence community made clear Thursday that they have not reached a definitive conclusion beyond ruling out theories that the virus was man-made or genetically modified

//President Donald Trump claimed that he has seen evidence that gives him a "high degree of confidence" the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but declined to provide details to back up his assertion

//The president continues to deflect blame for the coronavirus crisis in the U.S., claiming it would have been less severe if Beijing were more forthcoming with the severity of the virus in China toward the end of last year

//He has also suggested that China compensate the U.S., and possibly other countries, for coronavirus damages

Full Articles: Daily Mail UK & CNN Politics
http://dailym.ai/3foFkxN
https://cnn.it/2KWCodo

#coronavirus #China #WHO #Trump #VirusOrigin

Chinese propaganda 2/2: CCP created fake news claiming “COVID-19 was not lab-made” by altering Nobel prize winner, Luc Montagnier’s statement

Editor’s Note: From google search results, we can see french news has reported that the Nobel Prize winner, Luc Montagnier, says COVID-19 was man-made. However, CCP altered the original France sources, in the same way, that they put words into Italian scientist's mouths regarding the source of COVID-19, through their State Controlled media Xinhuanet, by spreading another version that the "French experts" said that COVID-19 virus was not created in a lab. Xinhuanet's fake news was listed as a very prominent searched display as shown. The question is: Have key search engine providers like Google been manipulated, influenced or even paid for altering their search results for the CCP?

Source: Google, (29-Apr)
bit.ly/2Wr4fb1

#Chinesepropaganda #fakenews #VirusOrigin #LucMontagnier

#Research
A study finds the Wuhan coronavirus strain prevalent in Hong Kong to be less virulent than the European and US strains

Full translation:
https://telegra.ph/Hong-Kongs-first-genomic-study-of-the-virus-reveals-lower-virulence-than-European-and-US-strains-05-10-2

#Coronavirus #VirusOrigin #HongKong

#Newspaper

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson joined the war of words on the origin of the COVID-19 Urging Pompeo to hire experts to investigate when the virus first appears in the US.

(29 Apr)The US government has publicly accused China of concealing the Wuhan Pneumonia (COVID-19) epidemic a few times, while China has continuously responded to the US accusations through the diplomatic "war wolf." Earlier, Zhao, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson of China, claimed that the virus first appeared in the US and was brought to China by the US army. Recently, Hua, another spokesperson, repeatedly targeted Pompeo in her speech, urging US experts to look into when the deadly virus first appeared in the US, as US citizens have the right to know.

Since Wuhan Pneumonia started spreading in the United States, US Secretary Pompeo has criticized China for concealing the epidemic several times, be it in public speeches or during media interviews. Recently, he again called on China to be more transparent in the investigation of the origin of the virus.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Hua Chunying, has also targeted Pompeo in her recent speeches. In her tweet on Apr 27, Hua said Pompeo was accusing China of concealing the epidemic again in an interview with Fox and asked who is out there spreading false information. Hua also urged Pompeo to stop playing political tricks to save energy for saving lives.

Today, Hua retweeted Pompeo's tweet of requesting China to be more open and transparent in the investigation of the origin of the virus as US experts aren't allowed to investigate in China. Hua replied that "CPC is open, transparent & responsible in #COVID19 response. 2 US experts were in China on WHO-China joint mission in late Jan". Hua also countered Pompeo's query by stating that US experts should investigate when the virus first appeared in the US because Americans need to know and the world also has the right to know.

Source: Radio Taiwan International
bit.ly/2YR2OWa

#US #Coronavirus #ConcealEpidemic #VirusOrigin #Investigation #Pompeo #Twitter #HuaChunying

#Newspaper

Behind China’s Twitter Campaign, a Murky Supporting Chorus

//Swarms of accounts are amplifying Beijing’s brash new messaging as the country tries to shape the global narrative about the coronavirus and much else.

//No doubt some of these accounts are run by patriotic, tech-savvy Chinese people who get around their government’s ban on Twitter and other Western platforms. But an analysis by The New York Times found that many of the accounts behaved with a single-mindedness that could suggest a coordinated campaign of the type that nation states have carried out on Twitter in the past.

//Of the roughly 4,600 accounts that reposted China’s leading envoys and state-run news outlets during a recent week, many acted suspiciously, The Times found. One in six tweeted with extremely high frequency despite having few followers, as if they were being used as loudspeakers, not as sharing platforms.

//Nearly one in seven tweeted almost nothing of their own, instead filling their feeds with reposts of the official Chinese accounts and others.

//In all, one third of the accounts had been created in the last three months, as the war of words with the Trump administration heated up. One in seven had zero followers.

//It is far from clear that the Chinese government is behind the swarms of accounts helping to spread its gospel on Twitter.

//Twitter last year suspended more than 200,000 accounts that it called a Chinese state-backed operation aimed at discrediting Hong Kong’s protesters

//The Times’s findings add to other recent evidence suggesting that Twitter is being manipulated to amplify pro-Beijing messages. Next Dim, a data firm in Israel, discovered two mundane-looking tweets praising China’s coronavirus response that were liked and reposted hundreds of thousands of times in March, possibly with the help of strategically placed influencer accounts.

//The U.S. State Department found inauthentic-seeming accounts that in April cited a Cambridge University study to raise doubts that the coronavirus originated in China. The most active of these accounts referred to the study in scores of tweets, even though the study’s lead author dismissed that interpretation of its findings.

//The State Department has denounced China’s efforts to burnish its image and drown out criticism during the pandemic, comparing them to Russia’s disinformation campaigns. Both countries are using a range of tools to “shape and tilt any given information environment in their favor,”

//Beijing’s Twitter brigade includes Hua Chunying, the head of the foreign ministry’s information department. Since joining the platform in October, Ms. Hua has attracted more than half a million followers with her feisty put-downs of the United States.

//Public records show that Beijing is trying to expand its influence on the Western internet. China’s internet regulator has sought out contractors to help it “make use of overseas social media platforms to develop online propaganda on major themes,”

Full Article: NTY, (08-Jun)

Further reading:
How China Unleashed Twitter Trolls to Discredit Hong Kong’s Protesters
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/18/world/asia/hk-twitter.html
#Twitter #ChinesePropaganda #Coronavirus #VirusOrigin #US

#Newspaper

Satellite data suggests coronavirus may have hit China earlier: Researchers

//Dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan last fall suggest the novel coronavirus may have been present and spreading through central China long before the outbreak was first reported to the world, according to a new Harvard Medical School study.

//Though Chinese officials would not formally notify the World Health Organization until Dec. 31 that a new respiratory pathogen was coursing through Wuhan, U.S. intelligence caught wind of a problem as early as late November and notified the Pentagon, according to four sources briefed on the confidential information.

//“What we're trying to do is look at the activity, how busy a hospital is,” Brownstein said. “And the way we do that is by counting the cars that are at that hospital. Parking lots will get full as a hospital gets busy. So more cars in a hospital, the hospital's busier, likely because something's happening in the community, an infection is growing and people have to see a doctor. So you see the increases in the hospital business through the cars… We saw this across multiple institutions.”

//The picture painted by the data is not in itself conclusive, Brownstein acknowledged, but he said the numbers are telling.

//Starting with nearly 350 images captured by private satellites circling the globe, Brownstein’s study first examined traffic and parking outside major hospitals in Wuhan for the past two years. Among them were photographs snapped from space approximately every week or every other week through the fall of 2019. From the approximately 350 frames, researchers found 108 usable images, showing locations without obstruction from smog, tall buildings, clouds or other features that could complicate satellite analysis.

//“If you look at all of the images, observations we've ever had of all of these locations since 2018, almost all of the highest car counts are all in the September through December 2019 time frame,”

//the new research suggests that COVID-19, which has already killed more than 110,000 Americans, was likely brought to the U.S. by travelers from Wuhan long before it was detected.

//Brownstein said he and his researchers found the hospital-traffic data to be even more compelling after digging into internet search patterns. Around the time the hospital traffic was surging, there was a spike in online traffic in the Wuhan region among users asking China’s Baidu search engine for information on “cough” and “diarrhea.”

//“While queries of the respiratory symptom ‘cough’ show seasonal fluctuations coinciding with yearly influenza seasons, ‘diarrhea’ is a more COVID-19-specific symptom and only shows an association with the current epidemic,” according to the study. “The increase of both signals precede the documented start of the COVID-19 pandemic in December.”

//“We previously validated this method of indirectly measuring disease activity by monitoring hospital parking lot usage in Chile, Argentina and Mexico,”... “Using the data, we were able to forecast trends in influenza-like illnesses over several years.”

Full article: ABC news, (08-Jun)

Further reading:
Analysis of hospital traffic and search engine data in Wuhan China indicates early disease activity in the Fall of 2019
https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42669767

#ChinaLiedPeopleDied #Pandemic #CoronavirusResearch #Wuhan #VirusOrigin

#Newspaper

China's state council's white paper propagandises anti-epidemic "achievements" without acknowledging whistleblower Dr Li Wenliang

(7 Jun)Today, China's State Council Information Office released a white paper entitled "Fighting COVID-19: China in Action", which declared China a "victim nation" of COVID-19 that deserved fair treatment and was "not to be blamed". It expressed firm opposition against the stigmatization and politicization of the pandemic. The white paper claimed that when the pandemic began, China "provided clear and explicit information to the international community". However, it blatantly omitted the fact that Chinese provincial officials prevented hospitals from reporting cases of the virus. It also neglected to mention ophthalmologist Dr Li Wenliang being exposed to the epidemic and reprimanded by Wuhan authorities. This is an obvious cover-up of the situation's reality.

The white paper consists of 35,000 words and is divided into four sections [with the following titles]: "China's Fight against the Epidemic: A Test of Fire", "Well-Coordinated Prevention, Control and Treatment", "Assembling a Powerful Force to Beat the Virus" and "Building a Global Community of Health for All."

//Xu Lin, deputy minister of the Central Propaganda Department, responded to external criticism during the press conference for the [white paper's] announcement. He said that the Chinese media's reports on the epidemic were impartial and based on facts; accusations of false propaganda were inaccurate and totally ill-founded. Xu criticized the foreign politicians and media that politicised the pandemic and sensationalised theories of its "Chinese origin" and "China's cover-up", among others, without any scientific backing.

Full translation:
https://telegra.ph/Chinas-state-councils-white-paper-propagandises-anti-epidemic-achievements-without-acknowledging-whistleblower-Dr-Li-Wenliang-06-21

Source: Apple Daily

#LiWenliang #WHO #Coronavirus #VirusOrigin #WhitePaper #Epidemic #ChinesePropaganda

Chinese media step up campaign to muddy probe into Covid oigins

People’s Daily, the official Chinese Communist party (CCP) said in a Facebook that “all available evidence” suggested the virus “did not start in central China’s Wuhan”, citing Chinese experts.

“These clues all point to imported cold chain seafood being the outbreak’s origin”, Wu Zunyou, China’s Centre for Disease Control.

China are open for the investigation into the origins of the virus. However, the first team sent by the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish guidelines for later studies failed to visit Wuhan drawing criticism from US diplomats.

Michael Ryan, the WHO Health Emergencies Programme executive, said that the team should start the search in Wuhan and follow the evidence from there.

Source: FT #Nov26

https://www.ft.com/content/edda14d0-145b-42e4-a1d2-4d64ab73bda1

#Covid19 #China #WHO #Virusorigin