People's Republic of China (PRC) : News & Discussions

‘Get out, China’: Indonesian Muslims march to protest against treatment of Uygurs
More than a thousand Muslims marched to the heavily guarded Chinese embassy in Indonesia’s capital on Friday to protest against China’s treatment of its Uygur Muslims.

The protesters, many wearing blue headbands reading “Save Uygurs”, chanted “Get out, China!” and unfurled Indonesian and Uygur flags as they marched to the embassy in downtown Jakarta.

In a speech, Yusuf Martak, a protest organiser, condemned the “oppression, torture and cruelty by the Chinese Communist government against brother Uygur Muslims”.

Martak, a leader of a conservative Muslim alliance that held mass protests against Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese governor, a minority Christian, in 2016, demanded an end to mass detentions of Uygur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region.

Indonesian and Malaysian Muslims protest in support of Uygurs in China

“We Muslims oppose all forms of colonialism and oppression of Uygurs,” said another speaker, Slamet Maárif, standing on the top of a truck. The crowd chanted “Get out, Communists!” as some waved banners saying “We stand with Uygurs.”

He called on the Indonesian government to take action to help the Uygurs.

The protesters performed afternoon prayers outside the embassy before dispersing.

Human rights organisations say up to 1 million ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang have been detained in camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination and pressured to give up their religion.

Associated Press reported last year that some are forced to work in factories, and tracked clothing made in one camp to an American sportswear company.

China describes the sites as vocational training centres necessary to fight radicalism in the restive province, and says the trainees work voluntarily.

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Protesters gather in front of China’s embassy in Jakarta to protest against the repression of Uygurs. Photo: dpa

Indonesian security minister Mohammad Mahfud MD on Thursday said the government summoned Chinese Ambassador Xiao Qian to explain the alleged abuses in Xinjiang.

He said Xiao asserted that China is committed to the protection of human rights and freedom of religion.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, is reluctant to publicly criticise Beijing, fearing it could jeopardise Chinese investment or invite retaliatory Chinese support for separatists in Indonesia’s predominantly Christian Papua region, where a pro-independence insurgency has simmered since the 1960s.
‘Get out, China’: Indonesian Muslims protest against treatment of Uygurs
 
China steps up efforts to control new coronavirus outbreak

China steps up efforts to control new coronavirus outbreak

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WUHAN, China (AP) — Heightened precautions were being taken in China and elsewhere Tuesday as governments strove to control the outbreak of a new coronavirus that threatens to spread further during the Lunar New Year travel rush.

Anxieties grew after Chinese government expert Zhong Nanshan revealed on state television late Monday that the virus can be spread from one person to another. The first cases late last month were connected to a seafood market, and transmission was suspected to be occurring from animal-to-human. Authorities previously had not confirmed human-to-human transmission.

Four people have died, and more than 200 have been infected, and most of the illnesses and all of the fatalities were in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the seafood market is located.

In addition to 198 cases in Wuhan, more than 20 have been diagnosed in Beijing, Shanghai and southern Guangdong province, and four cases have been confirmed overseas among Chinese travelers in South Korea, Japan and Thailand.

Two cases in Guangdong were people who had not visited Wuhan but fell ill after family members returned from there. Zhong cited those as evidence the disease had spread between humans.

Concerned about a global outbreak similar to SARS, a different coronavirus that spread from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002-2003, numerous nations have adopted screening measures for travelers arriving from China, especially those from Wuhan.

Stock markets fell in much of Asia as investors worried about the potential impact on tourism and the economy.

“The outbreak of a SARS-like coronavirus in Wuhan is developing into a major potential economic risk to the Asia-Pacific region now that there is medical evidence of human-to-human transmission," wrote Rajiv Biswas, the Asia Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit, in an analysis.

He noted that the SARS crisis hurt the economies of China, several Southeast Asian nations and as far afield as Canada and Australia.
 
Bird flew so Chinese ate it.

China needs to be quarantined before we end up with a Walking Dead apocalypse.
 
China's animal trade to bring more viral outbreaks: experts

China's animal trade to bring more viral outbreaks: experts
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A turtle for sale at a market in Wuhan, the epicentre of a deadly new virus that came from an animal
A turtle for sale at a market in Wuhan, the epicentre of a deadly new virus that came from an animal (AFP Photo/HECTOR RETAMAL )

The animal-borne SARS virus 17 years ago was supposed to be a wake-up call about consuming wildlife as food, but scientists say China's latest epidemic indicates that the practice remains widespread and a growing risk to human health.

Like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which was traced to bats and civets, the virus that has killed dozens in China and infected almost 2,000 people is believed to have originated in animals trafficked for food.

Final findings are yet to be announced, but Chinese health officials believe it came from wildlife sold illegally at a meat market in the central city of Wuhan that offered everything from rats to wolf puppies and giant salamanders.

The so-called "bushmeat" trade, plus broader human encroachment on wild habitats, is bringing us into ever-closer contact with animal viruses that can spread rapidly in our uber-connected world, said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a global NGO focused on infectious disease prevention.

The Global Virome Project, a worldwide effort to increase preparedness for pandemics, which Daszak is a part of, estimates there are 1.7 million undiscovered viruses in wildlife, nearly half of which could be harmful to humans.

Daszak said the project's research indicates we can expect around five new animal-borne pathogens to infect humanity each year.

- 'New normal' -

"The new normal is that pandemics are going to happen more frequently," he said.

"We are making contact with animals that carry these viruses more, and more, and more."

Viruses are a natural part of the environment, and not all are the stuff of sci-fi horror.

But the recent track record of animal-hosted viruses that "jump" to humans is sobering.

Like SARS, which killed hundreds in China and Hong Kong in 2002-03, Ebola also was traced to bats, while HIV has roots in African primates.

Today, more than 60 percent of new emerging human infectious diseases reach us via animals, scientists say.

Even familiar menu items like poultry and cattle -- whose pathogens we have largely adapted to over millennia -- occasionally throw a curveball, like bird flu or mad-cow disease.
 
A video that claims to be from a nurse in Wuhan claims that things are even worse than that.

According to her, there are already 90,000 cases of the coronavirus in China…

A nurse wearing a protective suit and face mask treating the sick in Wuhan has claimed that 90,000 people have already been infected by the coronavirus in China – far more than the figure of just 1,975 issued by government officials.
Her warning from the heart of the outbreak emerged as the Chinese government faced accusations of censoring criticism of its handling of the disease in order to play down the crisis.​
It is important to note that what she is reporting is entirely unconfirmed, and at this point there doesn’t seem to be any way to confirm her claims.

But what Chinese officials are now confirming is that this virus can be spread by victims without any symptoms at all

China’s health minister Ma Xiaowei made a startling statement Sunday about the Wuhan coronavirus: He said people can spread it before they become symptomatic.
“This is a game changer,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a longtime adviser to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.​
This is completely contrary to what we were told previously.

And we were also previously told that the incubation period was a week or less, but now we are being told that the incubation period can last for as long as 14 days

China’s National Health Commission Minister Ma Xiaowei said the incubation period for the virus can range from one to 14 days, during which infection can occur, which was not the case with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).​
That means that there could be thousands upon thousands of people that aren’t exhibiting any symptoms at all that are spreading this virus around like wildfire all over the globe right at this moment.

Why didn’t they just tell us the truth right from the beginning?

If they didn’t know what was happening, it would have been okay for them to admit that. Instead, they fed us bad information that turned out to be completely false.

Chinese officials are assuring us that they have everything under control because they have now locked down a whole bunch of major cities.

But that isn’t going to stop the spread of the virus. Millions of people left Wuhan before that city was quarantined, and many others have been able to skirt around the travel restrictions quite easily. The following comes from Zero Hedge

Yet, but… there is just one problem: the much needed quarantine and lockdown were far too late, because as Wuhan’s mayor Zhou Xianwang revealed on Sunday during a press conference, about 5 million residents had already left Wuhan before the lockdown because of the deadly coronavirus epidemic and the Spring Festival holiday. As the SCMP reports, many of Wuhan’s residents had already left the city for the holiday, while others rushed out after the lockdown was announced on Wednesday night.
As a result, only 9 million people were remaining in the city after the lockdown, with roughly a third of it, including countless cases of coronavirus, having already spread across China.​
This extremely deadly coronavirus, wherever it originally came from, is now out of the bag.

With each passing hour more cases are being confirmed all over the world, and there are now five confirmed cases in the United States.