HONG KONG: Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday (Aug 18) she was not too bothered about US sanctions against her but the Chinese-ruled city will complain to the World Trade Organization (WTO) about a new US requirement on Hong Kong-made products.
The United States this month imposed sanctions on Lam and other current and former Hong Kong and mainland officials whom Washington accuses of curtailing political freedom in the financial hub.
"Despite some inconvenience in my personal affairs, it is nothing I would take to heart," Lam told a weekly news conference.
"We will continue to do what is right for the country and for Hong Kong."
The sanctions came in response to China's imposition of a sweeping national security law on the semi-autonomous city after prolonged anti-China, pro-democracy protests last year.
The legislation punishes anything China considers secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison and has drawn criticism from Western countries that worry the law will end the freedoms promised when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
The sanctions freeze any US assets of the officials targeted and bar Americans from doing business with them.
Lam said that while she could not travel to the United States herself, her government would continue to promote Hong Kong to US businesses.
The US government has also required goods made in the former British colony for export to the United States to be labelled as made in China after Sep 25.
Lam said Hong Kong and China were separate WTO members and Hong Kong would lodge a complaint against the US decision.
The Hong Kong government initially denounced the US sanctions as "shameless and despicable" and "blatant and barbaric" interference in China's internal affairs.
Beijing and Lam's government have defended the national security law as necessary for the city's stability and prosperity, and they said imposing it was China's legitimate right.
Asked about the international community's criticism of last week's arrest of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, and the search of his Apple Daily newsroom by some 200 police officers, Lam said she could not comment on individual cases, but warned of "double standards" in concerns expressed by other countries.
She said the government's decision to postpone elections for the city's legislature for a year amid a resurgence in coronavirus cases was criticised by countries that did not level similar criticism of other governments that postponed votes.
WASHINGTON: Former first lady Michelle Obama launched a scathing attack on President Donald Trump on the first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday (Aug 17), calling him the "wrong president" for the country and urging Americans to elect Joe Biden in November to end the chaos created by Trump's presidency.
While acknowledging she did not care much for politics, Obama said Biden's steady and empathetic approach to problems was the answer and urged voters to stand in line or do whatever it takes to ensure they can beat Trump.
"Whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy," Obama said, adding Trump was "in over his head" as president.
"So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it."
Obama, whose husband Barack Obama was president when Biden was vice president from 2009-2017, capped a long parade of speakers, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans, who made the case for Biden at the start of his four-day nominating convention.
Former rival Bernie Sanders and prominent Republican John Kasich said Biden's steady approach to problems was needed to confront the coronavirus pandemic, economic woes and racial injustice.
"Joe Biden will end the hate and division Trump has created. He will stop the demonisation of immigrants, the coddling of white nationalists, the racist dog-whistling, the religious bigotry and the ugly attacks on women," said Sanders, a US senator and Biden's top primary rival.
The coronavirus pandemic forced Biden's Democrats to overhaul the convention, largely eliminating the in-person gathering planned for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and turning it into two-hour, prime-time packages of virtual speeches and events from around the country.
The convention featured discussions with voters who described their struggles confronting the virus and coping with the slumping economy and healthcare.
Democratic US presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden appears by video feed from Delaware to question voters about their situations at the start of the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention. (Photo: Reuters)
Kristin Urquiza, who lost her father to COVID-19, blamed Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic for his death.
"My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life," she said. "When I cast my vote for Joe Biden, I will do it for my Dad."
The convention opened amid widespread worries about the safety of voting in November because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Democrats have pushed mail-in ballots as a safe alternative, but fear it could be hindered by cost cuts at the Postal Service that, under Louis DeJoy, a top Trump donor, have led to delays in mail service.
"The president may hate the Post Office, but he's still going to have to send them a change of address card come January," said US Senator Amy Klobuchar, who ran unsuccessfully against Biden in the 2020 primary.
The convention also highlighted a call for a broad racial reckoning over systemic racism and police brutality amid protests that broke out after the death of African American George Floyd in Minnesota under the knee of a white policeman.
Speaking from Houston, Floyd's brother Philonise Floyd introduced a moment of silence and honored other Black victims of police violence.
"So, it's up to us to carry on the fight for justice. Our actions will be their legacies," Floyd said.
A video showed Biden speaking virtually with activists and officials around the country about ways to battle racism.
Jim Clyburn, the influential US Representative from South Carolina whose endorsement of Biden was critical to his breakthrough primary victory in that state in February, said Biden understood the need to unify people was part of presidential leadership.
"Joe Biden is as good a man as he is a leader," Clyburn said from South Carolina.
"We know Joe Biden, but more importantly Joe knows us."
COUNTRY AT A CROSSROADS
Kasich, a former Ohio governor and frequent Trump critic who lost to Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, described his opposition to Trump as a patriotic duty and said the country was at a crossroads.
"I'm a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country," he said.
Standing literally at a fork in a road, he called Biden "a man who can help us see the humanity in each other".
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said Kasich "was a loser as a Republican and he'll be a loser as a Democrat".
Other Republicans on the speakers list included former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and former Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chief Executive Meg Whitman.
"Donald Trump has no clue how to run a business, let alone an economy. Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a plan that will strengthen our economy for working people and small business owners," Meg Whitman said.
The inclusion of Republican speakers angered some Democrats who voiced concern it would take time away from progressive speakers like Sanders of Vermont and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana congressman and Biden campaign co-chair, pushed back against that idea, telling reporters earlier in the day, "Remember tonight's theme is 'We the People,' not 'We the Democrats.'"
In a break with tradition, Trump looked to steal Biden's spotlight by crisscrossing the United States in a campaign swing to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Candidates usually limit their activities during their opponents' convention week.
Biden, 77, leads Trump, 74, in national opinion polls heading into back-to-back convention weeks for the two political parties.
Trump will be formally nominated for a second term at next week's Republican National Convention, which also has been scaled back due to coronavirus concerns.
Speaking at a fundraiser before the convention's prime-time broadcast, Biden, 77, said: "We've got to unite this country. It's the only way it's going to work."
Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama, will be formally nominated on Tuesday to be the Democratic challenger to Trump, 74, in the Nov 3 election. Biden's acceptance speech on Thursday will cap the convention.
Biden's vice-presidential pick, US Senator Kamala Harris of California, the daughter of immigrant parents from India and Jamaica, will speak on Wednesday.
Democrats hope the opening night lineup will offer a contrast to 2016, when lingering bitterness between rivals Sanders and nominee Hillary Clinton contributed to her eventual loss to Trump.
This year, Sanders dropped out of the primary race in April and swiftly endorsed Biden.
SINGAPORE - Experts in Singapore say there is no basis for Malaysia's claim that it has found a strain of the coronavirus that is 10 times more infectious.
They also say this strain - D614G - which is already found in Singapore, will have no impact on vaccine development. The variant has also been found in the Philippines.
Malaysia's director-general of Health, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, had posted on his Facebook page on Sunday that this mutation, which he said had been "found by scientists in July 2020" and now identified in three patients in Malaysia, is "10 times easier to infect other individuals" with Ovid-19.
He added that vaccines being developed may be ineffective against this mutation. He attributed the spread of two recent clusters to this mutation, which was first sequenced in Malaysia last month.
But Professor Wang Linfa, director of the Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases at Duke-NUS Medical School, told The Straits Times that there is "no real scientific data to make the claim that D614G is more transmissible, let alone the 10-fold claim."
His programme deputy, Professor Oi Eng Eong, added: "This mutation would certainly not impact vaccine efficacy since vaccines would generate antibodies that bind many different parts of the virus spike protein and not just be limited to the site of mutation."
Associate Professor Hsu Liyang, an infectious diseases specialist and epidemiologist at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health said this mutation has been circulating here since February.
Singapore sequences a sampling of the virus from patients, and has found more than 100 with this mutation between February and July.
Since only a fraction of virus samples are sequenced, Prof Hsu said it would likely mean that thousands of infections here are due to the D614G mutation.
In June, an article in the highly prestigious Cell journal said the D614G variant was rapidly becoming dominant in the world. It said this mutation is "unlikely to have a major impact on the efficacy of vaccines currently in the pipeline".
Prof Wang said this variant is genetically more fit, but that does not mean it is more easily spread.
The Philippine Genome Centre disclosed that G614 was found in nine samples randomly collected in Quezon City.
It is the same as D614G - which indicates that D614 has become G614 - due to a change in position 614 of the virus genome from D (aspartic acid) to G (glycine).
Philippines Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the sample size was still too small to conclude that G614 had already spread in the Philippines. She added that there is no definitive study showing that G614 was more transmissible than D614.
Prof Hsu said: "It is unsurprising to find the D614G in the Philippines, given how widely spread it is."
Dr Sebastian Maurer-Stroh, deputy executive director (Research), Bioinformatics Institute, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) said mutations are natural steps in evolution of viruses.
He said there are now three "G" clades or mutations, including D614G, which have a "fitness advantage" that has seen them grow from 0 per cent of infections in January to 95 per cent in July.
He told The Straits Times: "There is no need to panic.
"Since this variant has been circulating globally it can be expected to be seen in any country, and every country with active surveillance has seen it already, especially related to import from travellers."
He expects the virus to continue mutating, and in fact, there are already six new groupings.
Dr Maurer-Stroh said: "So you can see that evolution is already beyond just clade G (D614G) and we have seen "daughters" of the virus being formed with clade GR common in Europe and India and clade GH more common in the US."
He said mutation "doesn't necessarily mean increased virulence, but can have an opposite effect - milder or asymptomatic infection leading to longer undetected infection.
Experts are still debating if D614G spreads more easily.
Dr Asok Kurup, who chairs the Academy of Medicine's Chapter of Infectious Disease Physicians, said there has been no clinical impact from the mutation.
But he added that should any mutation prove more infectious, then current measures such as masking and social distancing become even more important.
SINGAPORE - Experts in Singapore say there is no basis for Malaysia's claim that it has found a strain of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 that is 10 times more infectious.
They also say this strain - D614G - which is already found in Singapore, will have no impact on vaccine development.
Malaysia's director-general of health, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, had posted on his Facebook page on Sunday (Aug 16) that this mutation, which he said had been "found by scientists in July 2020" and now identified in three patients in Malaysia, is "10 times easier to infect other individuals".
He added that vaccines being developed may be ineffective against this mutation.
He attributed the spread of two recent clusters to this mutation, which was first sequenced in Malaysia last month.
But Professor Wang Linfa, director of the emerging infectious diseases programme at Duke-NUS Medical School, told The Straits Times that there is "no real scientific data to make the claim that D614G is more transmissible, let alone the tenfold claim".
His programme deputy, Professor Ooi Eng Eong, said: "This mutation would certainly not impact vaccine efficacy since vaccines would generate antibodies that bind to many different parts of the virus spike protein and not just be limited to the site of mutation."
Associate Professor Hsu Liyang, an infectious diseases specialist at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, said this mutation has been circulating here since February.
Singapore sequences a sampling of the virus from patients, and has found more than 100 with this mutation between February and July.
Since only a fraction of virus samples are sequenced, Prof Hsu said it would likely mean that thousands of infections here are due to the D614G mutation.
In June, an article in the highly prestigious Cell journal said the D614G variant was rapidly becoming dominant in the world.
Prof Wang said this variant is genetically more fit, but that does not mean it is more easily spread or causes more severe illness.
Dr Asok Kurup, who chairs the Academy of Medicine's Chapter of Infectious Disease Physicians, said there has been no clinical impact from this mutation.
But he added that should it prove more infectious, then current measures such as masking and social distancing become even more important.
BEIJING: China's vaccine specialist CanSino Biologics Inc has won a patent approval from Beijing for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate Ad5-nCOV, state media reported, citing documents from the country's intellectual property regulator.
It is the first COVID-19 vaccine patent granted by China, state-owned newspaper People's Daily reported on Sunday (Aug 16).
The paper cited documents published by China's National Intellectual Property Administration saying that the patent was issued on Aug 11.
Saudi Arabia said this month it plans to begin Phase III clinical trials for the CanSino vaccine. CanSino has said it is also in talks with Russia, Brazil and Chile to launch Phase III trials in those countries.
CanSino's Hong Kong shares rose around 14 per cent in Monday's morning session. Its Shanghai shares rose by 6.6 per cent as of midday.
