President Donald Trump has roped in six Indian-American corporate leaders, including Sunder Pichai from Google and Satya Nadella from Microsoft, to seek advice from the “brightest” and the “smartest” people on how to restart US economy that has been crippled by the coronavirus pandemic. America’s economy, the world’s largest, has come to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 95 per cent of the 330 million population is under stay-at-home order amid a national emergency in place.

Now is not the time to reduce resources for WHO as it fights COVID-19, says UN chief Antonio Guterres

United Nations: Now is “not the time” to reduce resources for the World Health Organization (WHO) as it fights the COVID-19 pandemic, UN chief Antonio Guterres said after US President Donald Trump announced to halt America’s funding of the world body and blamed it for severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.

• The Trump administration has accused WHO of taking side with China in the coronavirus outbreak that has brought America’s economy to a standstill. “Today I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the WHO, while a review is conducted to assess the WHO’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what has gone on there,” Trump told reporters on Tue.
• The UN Secy-Gen expressed support for the WHO after it came under attack from Trump over the pandemic, saying that now is not the time to look back and assess how all those involved reacted to the crisis.
• As it is not that time, it is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the WHO or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus, Guterres said on Tue. He said that now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences.
• Background
• The novel coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan City of central China’s Hubei province in November, has so far infected 1.97 million people and killed at least 126,500 people globally, including more than 25,000 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
• American taxpayers provide between USD 400 million and USD 500 million/year to the WHO, while China contributes roughly USD 40 million a year and even less, Trump said.
• “As the organization’s leading sponsor, the US has a duty to insist on full accountability, one of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations, Trump said.
• As Trump lashed out at the WHO, Guterres had last week said that the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most dangerous challenges this world has faced in our lifetime. It is above all a human crisis with severe health and socio-economic consequences.
• Guterres reiterated his message from last week when he had said that WHO with thousands of its staff, is on the front lines, supporting Member States and their societies, especially the most vulnerable among them, with guidance, training, equipment and concrete life-saving services as they fight the virus.
• It is my belief that the WHO must be supported, as it is absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against COVID-19, Guterres had said. The UN Chief stressed that the virus is unprecedented in our lifetime and requires an unprecedented response.
• Voicing support for WHO’s handling of the crisis, Guterres said obviously, in such conditions, it is possible that the same facts have had different readings by different entities.
• Once we have finally turned the page on this epidemic, there must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe, and how all those involved reacted to the crisis. The lessons learned will be essential to effectively address similar challenges, as they may arise in the future. But now is not that time, Guterres said.
• Responding to Trump’s decision, Oxfam America President and CEO Abby Maxman said picking a fight with the WHO during a pandemic is shortsighted to say the least. Instead of bringing us together through this global crisis, President Trump has attacked leaders and agencies around the world, seeking to deflect blame for his own administration’s failings.
• The organization said with the latest move to hold back funding for the WHO, Trump is crippling any hopes for the responsible international cooperation and solidarity that is critical to save lives and restore the global economy.
• Withholding funding and blame-shifting means wasted time and needless death, misery, and poverty. And it gets the US and the world no closer to an end to this disaster, Maxman said, adding that Trump must immediately reverse course and act like the global leader the world expects.However, by visualizing various facts, which throw light on Search Results Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and China relation, a short history is hidden. Looking at overall picture of CORNA outbreak, its virology, its origin and spread, a length can be written and many questions are seeking answer.
  • In October 2005, Tedros was appointed Minister of Health of Ethiopia. Despite the many challenges faced by the health ministry in terms of poverty, poor infrastructure, and a declining global economic situation, progress in health indicators was considered “impressive” in Ethiopia.
  • During the period 2005–2008, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health built 4,000 health centers, trained and deployed more than 30,000 health extension workers, and developed a new cadre of hospital management professionals as part of a Health Extension Program (HEP). This effort has been credited with cutting infant mortality from 123 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 88 in 2011.
  • He later become Foreign Minister of Ethiopia (2012-16). Tedros’s years in Ethiopian politics saw a rise in China’s influence, as the country invested heavily in railway and hydropower infrastructure projects, as well as its sugar and telecommunication industries.
  • All told, the country received $24.5 billion in Chinese contracts and investment from 2005 through last year, according to the American Enterprise Institute. That was about 8% of the money the superpower put in sub-Saharan Africa during that time, and Ethiopia was No. 2 in Chinese foreign direct investment in the region, according to AEI’s China investment tracker. After years of uneven performance, Ethiopia’s economic growth was consistently above 8.5% for most of 2005-2017, World Bank data show. While not without drawbacks, the results of the investment in Ethiopia have been positive, and have likely earned China goodwill there, said Morrison.
  • “The reality is that the response in the city of Wuhan was delayed in comparison with the letter and spirit stipulated in the revised international regulations,” said Omi, who was WHO’s regional director for the Western Pacific during the SARS outbreak. China has been criticized for muzzling doctors who called early attention to the mysterious pneumonia, like Li Wenliang, who later died of infection—and delays in reporting apparent human-to-human transmission.
  • <On Fri, US President Trump tweeted “Why did the W.H.O. Ignore an email from Taiwanese health officials in late December alerting them to the possibility that Corona Virus could be transmitted between humans? Why did the W.H.O. make several claims about the Corona Virus that were either inaccurate or misleading in Jan and Feb, as the Virus spread globally? Why did the W.H.O. wait as long as it did to take decisive action? Lanhee Chen, Hoover Institution Fellow” quoting Fox News.
  • WHO has refused to release the names of doctors who thwarted an early bid to declare the CCP virus a global health emergency at the start of the year, Sky News Australia reported.
    • A previous investigation by Sky found that a group of WHO doctors had debated over whether or not to declare the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus a global emergency in late Jan, but those medical professionals who wanted to implement strict travel restrictions were outvoted.
    • Instead, WHO Director-General Dr. Ghebreyesus has continually praised China for its efforts to stop the spread of the virus. During a Jan. 28 meeting with President Xi Jinping, Tedros said the organization appreciated the “seriousness with which China is taking this outbreak, especially the commitment from top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstrated, including sharing data and genetic sequence of the virus,” before praising China’s “speed in identifying the virus.”
    • Instead of declaring a global emergency, the organization recommended that countries not ban travel to China or place any trade restrictions on the country. This was at a time when 12,167 cases of CCP virus had been confirmed and 170 deaths had been attributed to the disease.
    • Sky News said it asked the WHO to provide details of which doctors voted to block the emergency declaration from being declared in January but the organization declined to release those details, citing privacy concerns. WHO spokesman Tarik Jašarević told the outlet that it was “important to note that what happened between two meetings was the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China.”
  • The Daily Telegraph has stopped publishing paid-for propaganda on behalf of Chinese state media, amid growing scrutiny of how Beijing is using the pandemic to grow its influence in English-language media aimed at western audiences- The Guardian
    • The long-running China Watch section, funded by the government-controlled China Daily news outlet, has appeared in the Telegraph for more than a decade. The content, written by Chinese state journalists, presents relentlessly upbeat views on China’s standing in the world in both print supplements and on a branded section of the Telegraph’s website.
    • However, in recent days the dedicated content has been wiped from the Telegraph’s website along with another section that reproduced material from China’s People’s Daily Online – the official outlet of the country’s ruling communist party.
    • Articles deleted by the Telegraph as part of the removal had headlines such as: “Why are some framing China’s heroic efforts to stop coronavirus as inhumane?”; “Traditional Chinese medicine ‘helps fight coronavirus’”; and “Coronavirus outbreak is not an opportunity to score points against China”.
    • The Telegraph would not comment on why it is no longer running the lucrative branded material, with one report claiming that the newspaper was paid about £750,000 a year for reproducing the China Daily material. In common with the rest of the newspaper industry, the Telegraph is battling both a pandemic-induced fall in print sales and a collapse in the advertising market, while also trying to avoid becoming collateral damage in the fraternal feud between its two owners, the Barclay brothers.
    • The removal of the paid-for sections comes as China aims to improve its standing with western audiences amid the pandemic, with substantial investment in its CGTN rolling news channel and the growing role of vocal English-language diplomats who use Twitter to forcibly make their arguments.
    • In return, the country is facing an increasingly hostile reception from parts of the British media, with the Mail on Sunday spending recent weeks reporting on alleged threats to national security from growing Chinese influence in the UK.
    • The Telegraph has run many pieces critical of China since the start of the pandemic. The newspaper’s China correspondent, Sophia Yan, recently spent a week in Wuhan reporting on doubts about the official death toll from coronavirus, claiming the real total could be substantially higher than the authorities are admitting.
    • Another comment piece entitled “The Left have become China’s useful covidiots” suggested the “Chinese Communist party’s cover ups and lies” helped play a role in spreading the virus around the world. The Telegraph has also reported on how Chinese state media is buying positive coverage through Facebook adverts.
      • Other major global news outlets also run similarly branded China Watch sections, including the Wall Street Journal, who did not respond to a request for comment on whether they were continuing to run the section, which has not been updated for weeks.
        • Until recently, the New York Times carried a similar section but a spokesperson said earlier this year the outlet had made the decision “to stop accepting branded content ads from state-run media, which includes China Daily”. The Washington Post has also run China Watch in the past, although the outlet confirmed they have not run the supplement since last year.
      They are the same three US news outlets that recently had their Chinese-based reporters expelled from the country. Similar deals to reprint paid-for Chinese propaganda have been struck with newspapers around the world, including outlets in Australia, France and Germany.