“I do think there’s a problem with zoonotic diseases and this is clearly something we need to focus on,” said UK PM …reports Asian Lite news
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that it doesn’t look like that Covid-19 originated from a lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
“At the moment the advice we’ve had is that it doesn’t look like this particular disease of a zoonotic origin came from a lab,” Johnson said in his closing press conference at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Britain’s southwestern resort of Carbis Bay, a seaside resort and village in Cornwall.
“I do think there’s a problem with zoonotic diseases and this is clearly something we need to focus on,” he said.
Wuhan lab china
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain’s “best information” remained that Covid-19 “jumped” from animals to humans, Xinhua reported.
Leaders from Britain, the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy, plus the European Union, wrapped up on Sunday their first in-person summit in almost two years.
Britain also invited Australia, India, South Korea and South Africa as guest countries to this year’s meeting.
Pompeo went on to say that the administration was “serious in this endeavour” and that it “made clear that there would be real cost” to the Chinese government….reports Asian Lite News
Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated his firm belief that the coronavirus pandemic originated with a leak out a laboratory in China’s Wuhan.
In an interview with Fox News, Pompeo said under the administration of former President Donald Trump, the US came close to uncovering the details on COVID-19 origins and said there was enormous evidence.
“We have a really good idea what happened here. There is an enormous amount of evidence that there was a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is a pile of evidence a hundred feet high, I have high confidence that that’s the case. We pressed the Chinese Communist Party really hard – not just the State Department, but our CDC and others too,” he said.
Pompeo went on to say that the administration was “serious in this endeavour” and that it “made clear that there would be real cost” to the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, an advisory board member to the World Health Organization (WHO) told Fox News last week that China’s “massive cover-up” on COVID-19 is still happening today as the Wuhan lab-leak origin theory gains momentum.
“The Chinese have engaged in a massive cover-up that is going on until this day, involving destroying samples, hiding records, placing a universal gag order on Chinese scientists and imprisoning Chinese citizen journalists asking the most basic questions,” said Jamie Metzl of the WHO.
Meanwhile, Pompeo’s successor Antony Blinken said that the WHO’s first phase of study on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic is “highly deficient”, adding that leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) countries will insist China to cooperate with a second phase of WHO study. (ANI)
Yang said China was “gravely concerned” over what he called “absurd” stories that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab….reports Asian Lite News
Top US and Chinese diplomats appear to have had another sharply worded exchange, with Beijing saying it told the US to cease interfering in its internal affairs and accusing Washington of politicising the search for the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Senior Chinese foreign policy advisor Yang Jiechi and Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a phone call on Friday that revealed wide divisions in a number of contentious areas, including the curtailing of freedoms in Hong Kong and the mass detention of Muslims in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
Calls for a more thorough investigation into the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 are particularly sensitive for China because of suggestions that it might have have escaped from a laboratory in the central city of Wuhan, where cases were first discovered.
Yang said China was “gravely concerned” over what he called “absurd” stories that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab.
China “firmly opposes any despicable acts that use the epidemic as an excuse to slander China and to shift blames,” Yang was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
“Some people in the United States have fabricated and peddled absurd stories claiming Wuhan lab leak, which China is gravely concerned about,” Yang said.
“China urges the United States to respect facts and science, refrain from politicising Covid-19 origin tracing and concentrate on international anti-pandemic cooperation.” The State Department said Blinken “stressed the importance of cooperation and transparency regarding the origin of the virus, including the need for (World Health Organization) Phase 2 expert-led studies in China.”
The US and others have accused China of failing to provide the raw data and access to sites that would allow a more thorough investigation into where the virus sprung from and how it initially spread.
Equally contentious were the issues of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan and accusations that China has arbitrarily detained two Canadian citizens in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of an executive of Chinese communications technology giant Huawei, who is wanted by the U.S. law enforcement.
The U.S. has “fabricated various lies about Xinjiang in an attempt to sabotage the stability and unity in Xinjiang, which confuse right and wrong and are extremely absurd. China is firmly opposed to such actions,” Yang said.
Wuhan Institute of Virology
“Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs,” and those found in violation of a sweeping national security law imposed on the former British colony “must be punished,” Yang said.
Blinken, on the other hand, underscored the U.S. concern over the deterioration of democratic norms in Hong Kong and the ongoing “genocide and crimes against humanity against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” the State Department said.
He also urged Beijing to ease pressure against Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy China claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary.
According to Xinhua, Yang said Taiwan involves China’s “core interests” and that Beijing “firmly defends its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The tone of the phone call seemed to echo contentious talks in March in Alaska, when the sides traded sharp and unusually public barbs over vastly different views of each other and the world in their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office.
At that meeting, the US accused the Chinese delegation of “grandstanding,” while Beijing fired back, saying there was a “strong smell of gunpowder and drama” that was entirely the fault of the Americans.
“In terms of expertise and influence, American experts such as Fauci can hardly match Chinese top experts,” wrote Hu Xijin…reports Asian Lite News
With international media and scientists pointing fingers at the Wuhan-based Institute of Virology for Coronavirus’ production, Chinese state media has come out in defense of the country and its ruling dispensation and has targeted US infectious disease expert Dr Antony Fauci for spreading canard against China.
Editor-in-chief of Global Times Hu Xijin, in an opinion piece accused Fauci of attempting to hype “the old and groundless narrative” of coronavirus leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.”
“In terms of expertise and influence, American experts such as Fauci can hardly match Chinese top experts,” wrote Hu.
“American experts are weaker than their Chinese counterparts in understanding the epidemic and influencing the anti-virus fight,” he added.
Wuhan lab china
At a virtual event titled ‘United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking’, Fauci was asked whether he was fully convinced with the theory that the virus “developed naturally.”
“I am not convinced…I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favour of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,” he added.
This and a recent report by US intelligence carried by The Wall Street Journal stating that three scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalised in November 2019 triggered everyone to ask relevant questions on the same.
The newspaper said the report — which provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits — may add weight to calls for a broader probe of whether the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from the laboratory.
The report was followed by the United States demanding a “transparent” second phase of investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and the route of introduction to the human population.
“Phase 2 of the Covid origins study must be launched with terms of reference that are transparent, science-based, and give international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak,” US health secretary Xavier Becerra said in a video message at the 74th World Health Assembly (WHA).
A similar report was also carried by an Australian paper in March.
Another Global Times article called The Wall Street Journal report “an outright lie that came from nowhere.”
“This is a blatant lie, a conspiracy created by US intelligence agencies and the media outlet to slander China, and China has denied it. Is it a coincidence that Fauci repeated such lines?” the Global Times said in a report.
Meanwhile, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had not been exposed to Covid-19 before December 30, 2019, and there has been a “zero-infection” record among its staff and graduate students so far.
“What is the real purpose for the US to continue to play up the so-called “lab leak theory”? Does it really care about the origin-tracing of the virus or just wants to divert attention?” Zhao asked rhetorically at a press conference. (INN)
