TOKYO: Thousands of people from Myanmar living in Japan marched in downtown Tokyo on Sunday (Feb 14) to protest the military coup back home, some holding photos of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and signs deploring the loss of human rights.
The gathering, which started in a park and trailed through busy streets, thronged by police, was the latest in a series of protests in a nation that more than 33,000 Myanmar nationals have made their home.
“I don’t like the military government,” said Sum Lut Htu Ti, a restaurant worker who has lived in Japan for three decades.
Myanmar nationals living in Japan and supporters march though Shibuya pedestrian crossings during a protest on Feb 14, 2021, in Tokyo. (Photo: AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Myanmar nationals protest in Tokyo against the military coup, on Feb 14, 2021. (Photo: AP Images/Eugene Hoshiko)
She was marching in a large contingent of the Kachin ethnic group, wearing colorful traditional clothing.
“I want to fight with her,” she said of Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation's de facto leader who remains in detention following the Feb 1 coup.
The recent demonstrations in Tokyo appear to be growing, drawing more people each time. A few days ago, they gathered holding artificial candles and glow sticks in an evening vigil.
Sunday’s gathering also drew some Japanese protesters, including representatives from labor unions, who shouted slogans demanding freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi and promised solidarity.
They said they hoped the Japanese government and people would try to help Myanmar by rejecting and putting pressure on the junta, including with economic sanctions.
A protester carries a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi in Tokyo, on Feb 14, 2021. (Photo: AP Images)
Win Kyaw and his wife Ma Thida, both wearing the symbolic protest color of red, said they joined because they were worried about what they saw as the increasing violence in Myanmar.
Ma Thida, who held a framed portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, pointed to the flowers in her own hair, noting she was wearing them proudly in her honor.
“Just like those in Myanmar, we outside the country feel the same way and want to send our message,” said Win Kyaw, who has lived in Japan for 33 years and works at a restaurant.
WASHINGTON: US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Donald Trump "practically and morally responsible" for his supporters' deadly attack on the Capitol, only moments after voting to acquit the Republican former president on an impeachment charge of inciting the melee.
The top Senate Republican explained the unexpected turnabout at the end of a five-day impeachment trial, by declaring it unconstitutional to convict Trump of misconduct now that the former president has left office and become a private citizen.
The Senate earlier in the week found that the trial was constitutional in a 56-44 vote.
"There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," said McConnell, who along with the rest of the Congress and former vice president Mike Pence fled the mob that descended on the Capitol on Jan 6.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, walks in the Capitol as the Senate convenes in a rare weekend session for final arguments in the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
"The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president," McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor.
The remarks came soon after the 100-seat chamber acquitted Trump on a single charge of inciting insurrection in a 57-43 vote that failed to reach the 67-vote threshold necessary for conviction. Seven Senate Republicans joined Democrats to vote for conviction.
The House of Representatives had impeached Trump on Jan 13, a week before he left office.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced the senators who made Trump's acquittal possible as a "cowardly group of Republicans" and blamed McConnell for not allowing the House to deliver the impeachment charge to the Senate while Trump was still in the White House.
"Senator Mitch McConnell just went to the floor essentially to say that we made our case on the facts," said Representative Jamie Raskin, who had led the nine House Democrats who prosecuted Trump before the Senate.
McConnell was not the only Republican to castigate Trump for his behaviour after voting for acquittal.
"The question I must answer is not whether President Trump said and did things that were reckless and encouraged the mob. I believe that happened," Senator Rob Portman in a statement.
"My decision was based on my reading of the Constitution," the Ohio Republican added. "I believe the Framers understood that convicting a former president and disqualifying him or her from running again pulls people further apart."
Senator Chuck Grassley, the Senate's most senior Republican, described Trump's language in a fiery speech to supporters just before the Capitol assault as "extreme, aggressive and irresponsible".
But he said the Senate had no jurisdiction to hold a trial, agreed with Trump's legal team that the former president deserved more "due process" and said the prosecution had not made their case.
In comments that echoed the prosecution's case, McConnell said Trump had orchestrated "an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories" and described the former president as "determined to either overturn the voters' decision or else torch our institutions on the way out".
McConnell suggested that Trump could still face criminal prosecution for his acts.
"President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen," McConnell said. "He didn't get away with anything. Yet."
MELBOURNE: Think about aerial threats and the first thing that pops into people’s minds are fighter jets flown by human pilots shooting missiles at each other.
While these are an important, vital, parts of a country’s air defence, there are many airborne threats fighter jets cannot tackle - drone swarms, rockets fired from the ground and cruise missiles to name a few.
This is where ground-based air defence systems come in. Sensors including radars for 360-degree, 24/7 detection of potential airborne threats and shooters can complement the fighter jets overhead.
This ability to deal with an array of threats at different ranges, builds in redundancy so other parts of the system kick in should one fail.
But also important is the capability for individual sensors and shooters to “talk” to each other, sharing information and data securely so they see the big picture as a whole.
To be this truly multi-layered, comprehensive system that provides a security blanket over Singapore, individual systems must be networked with inbuilt fail-safes providing coverage against different threats at different ranges.
AN ISLAND AIR DEFENCE SYSTEM
Late last year the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) conducted a demonstration of its networked Island Air Defence System (IADS), a system that came into fruition after some 15 years of development and incremental refinement.
The IADS shown to journalists and defence minister Dr Ng Eng Hen, is a multi-layered, networked, and intelligent Air Defence system which integrates advanced sensors, capable weapon systems, command and control elements, and decision-making tools for defending Singapore against a wide spectrum of threats from the air round-the-clock.
Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen speaking to reporters on Dec 17, 2020. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
At the heart of the IADS is the Combat Network jointly developed by the RSAF and the Defence, Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), the key part of the system that integrates sensors, the smart Combat Management System (CMS) and weapon systems to increase resilience by preventing a single-point of failure.
The network fuses the picture provided by a variety of sensors such as the various radars operated by the RSAF.
It is also linked to civilian radars and flight plan databases, giving the RSAF a comprehensive understanding of the comings and goings in the airspace around Singapore at any time, crucial for detecting potential airborne threats.
The smart CMS and the Decision Support Systems (DSS) also incorporate technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics (DA), reducing the cognitive load required of operators to sense-make information from multiple sources for a quicker and more robust decision-making process.
This enables improvements to the sensor-to-shooter loop. The system can evaluate real-time situations to assign the most effective weapon systems, which range from fighter jets to short-range anti-aircraft missiles, to deal with potential air threats.
WHY CONSTANT UPGRADES NEEDED
The importance of modern, integrated air defence system was rammed home once again a few months ago, during the short but deadly war fought by Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nargono-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan won in no small part due with air dominance over the battlefield, allowing armed drones to operate with near-impunity after effectively destroying Armenia’s unintegrated air defences, picked off one by one, in large part as individual radars and missiles systems were not designed to communicate effectively with each other.
The losses suffered by the Armenians included several units of its vaunted multimillion-dollar Russian-built S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles (SAM), with the Azerbaijanis releasing several video clips taken from the explosive-packed drones as they dove into the unsuspecting missile launch vehicles.
Many had their onboard radars operating yet were unable to foresee their own demise, much less react.
Dr Ng was briefed on the Aster 30 by Air Defence and Operations Command commander Brigadier-General Kelvin Fan (left) and Chief of Air Force Major-General Kelvin Khong. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
These older systems were designed to deal with faster, larger conventional aircraft and could not detect the small, relatively slow drones and loitering munitions, designed to stay in the air for hours, circling overhead until a target is found and assigned by operators to crash its explosive-laden body onto it.
These events have shocked defence planners and observers.
It was the first time such armed drones and loitering munitions have been deployed in a conventional, state-to-state conflict on such a scale.
It was a demonstration of the ability of such threats, which may be sometimes older but are relatively cheap to buy and operate compared to aircraft and conventional cruise missiles, to dominate the battlefield when an adversary did not have appropriate countermeasures.
Singapore’s IADS was conceptualised in 2006. Since then, the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) has turned it into reality, gradually developing and adding new capabilities and replacing older, bespoke air defence systems becoming obsolete or less suitable for the IADS.
This meticulous effort underscores Singapore’s policy of taking the long-term view and insisting on sustainable investment when it comes to defence planning and spending.
The concept of such a network itself is not new. Several countries have it in place to defend key targets from air attack, but evolving AI technology and modern datalinks have taken information-sharing within the network to a whole new level.
The latest platform to be integrated into Singapore’s IADS is the Eurosam Aster 30 medium-range SAM, which joined the fold in August and now forms the upper tier of the RSAF’s ground-based air defence system.
The SPYDER (left) and Aster 30 air defence systems. (Photo: Jeremy Long)
Instead of buying off-the-shelf, MINDEF decided to fold the Aster 30 system into radars already forming the sensor network of the IADS, which can provide simultaneous command guidance to multiple missiles, and use a unique truck-mounted guidance radar and datalink system to provide mid-course guidance.
The Aster 30 replaced the Improved HAWK (Homing All the Way Killer) missile in the RSAF’s inventory. It has a longer, 70km range and the added ability to defend against drones and some kinds of ballistic missiles, the latter being a first for Singapore’s defence capability.
RESPONDING TO NEW THREATS
Dr Ng noted that work is not done on the IADS however, as the defence establishment continues to monitor the landscape for new airborne threats and identify potential gaps in coverage in the IADS.
These include not just longer-ranged munitions such as cruise missiles developed by an increasing number of countries which also means a malign state have more sources than ever before.
Dr Ng also highlighted non-traditional threats like terrorists making homebuilt rockets like the Indonesian-based plot uncovered in 2016, or even unlicensed drones that could be purchased via the dark web.
An illustration of this was in the waning days of the Islamic State’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria, where home-built, modified commercial drones were employed to drop explosives on enemy forces.
Other insurgent groups have also use similar drones against Syrian government or Russian military forces in Syria’s civil war, both with limited success.
Singapore’s networked IADS must continually be upgraded to ensure that it maintains an effective defence against electronic interference such as jamming or cyber-attacks, a potentially tough challenge as militaries seek to continually improve their capabilities in this domain.
The former has been suggested as a possible reason for Azerbaijan’s success in the recent conflict, with Turkey, who has provided technical, materiel support, and is believed to have supplied long-range jamming equipment to blind Armenian radars and warning systems.
Another recent example of electronic warfare is the Russian support for militants who have conquered a swathe of eastern Ukraine since 2014, with several documented examples of these systems sighted on the battlefield, to jam and disrupt Ukrainian military communications and other systems.
An elderly man sits in a bomb shelter in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, where he hides with other people. (Photo: AFP/Alexey Filippov)
AI-based drone detection systems, while less common, are also now commercially available, equipped with camera-based recognition techniques or radio frequency monitoring to detect drones.
Swarming attacks pose a different threat, as a large number of incoming attackers could overwhelm by numbers, particularly if these utilise a mixture of platforms and approach a target from many directions.
The was the case in 2019 when a mixture of cruise missiles and drones believed to have been launched from Iran-attacked oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, took a circuitous flight path to evade Saudi air defences and came in from an unexpected direction.
While the IADS provides 360-degree coverage of the airspace around Singapore and reduces the likelihood of being surprised by an attack, the RSAF’s ground-based air defences are an all-missile affair. Singapore’s surface-to-air Spyder system, with four missiles, and each Aster 30 system’s eight, could see a sustained swarm attack drain the defender out of ready-to-use missiles.
The obvious solution is a cannon-based system to complement the missiles like the short-range, rapid fire Phalanx close-in weapon system or the Rheinmetall Skyshield that can search, track and engage missile or rocket threats with short, quick bursts of munitions.
Another alternative is the Israeli developed Iron Dome featuring multiple-target tracking and self-guided missile interceptors, to defend against incoming rockets.
Smoke and fire are seen after shelling by Azerbaijan's artillery in Stepanakert, the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. (Photo: AP)
The technology for more advanced directed energy weapons holds great potential but is still in its infancy. It will be some time before these are ready for widespread use, but are potentially ways for improving Singapore IADS.
The relatively recent emergence of weapons demonstrate that just because the system appears ready to deal with potential adversaries today, it would be foolish to assume that the status quo would hold in the long or even medium term.
As Dr Ng himself said during his recent visit to the IADS, while the current systems will serve Singapore in the next few decades, the RSAF must continue to look at steady improvements and remain cognisant of gaps to fill.
Mike Yeo is the Asia reporter for US-based defence publication Defense News.
WASHINGTON: The US Senate acquitted Donald Trump on Saturday (Feb 13) in his second impeachment trial in a year, with fellow Republicans blocking conviction over the former president's role in the deadly assault by his supporters on the US Capitol.
The Senate vote of 57-43 fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection after a five-day trial in the same building ransacked by his followers on Jan 6 shortly after they heard him deliver an incendiary speech.
In the vote, seven of the 50 Senate Republicans joined the chamber's unified Democrats in favoring conviction.
Trump left office on Jan 20, so impeachment could not be used to remove him from power. But Democrats had hoped to secure a conviction to hold him responsible for a siege that left five people including a police officer dead and to set the stage for a vote to bar him from ever serving in public office again. Given the chance to hold office in the future, they argued, Trump would not hesitate to encourage political violence again.
Trump's attorneys argued that his words at the rally were protected by his constitutional right to free speech and said he was not given due process in the proceedings.
Republicans saved Trump in the Feb 5, 2020, vote in his first impeachment trial, when only one senator from their ranks - Mitt Romney - voted to convict and remove him from office.
Romney voted for impeachment on Saturday along with fellow Republicans Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey, and Lisa Murkowski.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted "not guilty," offered scathing remarks about the former president after the verdict.
"There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," he said. "The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president."
The drama on the Senate floor unfolded against a backdrop of gaping divisions in a pandemic-weary United States along political, racial, socioeconomic and regional lines. The trial provided more partisan warfare even as Democratic President Joe Biden, who took office on Jan. 20 after defeating Trump in the November election, called for healing and unity after his predecessor's four turbulent years in power and a caustic election campaign.
Seventy-one percent of American adults, including nearly half of all Republicans, believe Trump was at least partially responsible for starting the Capitol assault, but only about half of the country thought Trump should be convicted of inciting insurrection, according to an Ipsos poll conducted for Reuters.
Trump, 74, continues to hold a grip on his party with a right-wing populist appeal and "America First" message. The wealthy businessman-turned-politician has considered running for president again in 2024.
Trump is only the third president ever to be impeached by the House of Representatives - a step akin to a criminal indictment - as well as the first to be impeached twice and the first to face an impeachment trial after leaving office. But the Senate still has never convicted an impeached president.
Democrats forged ahead with impeachment despite knowing it could overshadow critical early weeks of Biden's presidency.
The House approved the single article of impeachment against Trump on Jan 13, with 10 Republicans joining the chamber's Democratic majority. That vote came a week after the pro-Trump mob stormed the neoclassical domed Capitol, interrupted the formal congressional certification of Biden's victory, clashed with an overwhelmed police force, invaded the hallowed House and Senate chambers, and sent lawmakers into hiding for their own safety.
The US Capitol Building on the third day of President Trump's impeachment trial in Washington, US. (Photo: Reuters)
'FIGHT LIKE HELL'
Shortly before the rampage, Trump urged his followers to march on the Capitol, repeated his false claims that the election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud, and told them that "if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
During the trial, nine House lawmakers serving as trial managers, or prosecutors, urged senators to convict Trump to hold him accountable for a crime against American democracy and to prevent a repeat in the future. They played searing video of rioters swarming inside the Capitol and making violent threats toward politicians including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Vice President Mike Pence.
The House managers said Trump summoned the mob to Washington, gave the crowd its marching orders and then did nothing to stop the ensuing violence.
The defense lawyers accused Democrats not only of trying to silence Trump as a political opponent they feared facing in the future but of attempting to criminalise political speech with which they disagreed and aiming to cancel the voices of the tens of millions of voters who backed him.
Michael van der Veen, lawyer for former President Donald Trump, departs on the fourth day of the Senate Impeachment trials for former President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US Feb 12, 2021. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/Pool via REUTERS)
Trump's lawyers argued the trial was unconstitutional because he had already left office. The words Trump used, they argued, were no different than those regularly employed by Democrats.
In his previous impeachment trial, the Senate voted to acquit Trump on two charges - abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. That impeachment arose from Trump's 2019 pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden as he sought foreign aid to sully a domestic political rival.
A common theme in the charges at the heart of the two impeachments was Trump's abandonment of accepted democratic norms to advance his own political interests.
The US Constitution sets out impeachment as the instrument with which the Congress can remove and bar from future office presidents who commit "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Impeachment, once a rare occurrence, has become more commonplace during America's era of poisonous political polarisation in recent decades. In the 209 years after the first US president, George Washington, took office in 1789, there was only one impeachment.
Since 1998, there have been three, including Trump's two. Andrew Johnson was impeached and acquitted in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War and Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 and acquitted in 1999 of charges stemming from a sex scandal.
Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 rather than face impeachment over the Watergate scandal.
Trump's acquittal does not end the possibility of other congressional action against him such as a censure motion. Republicans seemed dead set against an idea floated by Democrats of invoking the Constitution's 14th Amendment provision barring from public office anyone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the government.
The impeachment proceedings also can be viewed in the context of a battle for the future of the Republican Party. Some Republicans - mostly moderates and establishment figures - have voiced alarm at the direction Trump has taken their party. Detractors have accused Trump - who had never before held public office - of undermining the institutions of democracy, encouraging a cult of personality and pursuing policies built around "white grievance" in a nation with a growing non-white population.
WASHINGTON: The US Senate began hearing final arguments on Saturday (Feb 13) in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump as the top Republican senator said he would vote to acquit the former president of inciting the deadly Jan 6 assault on the Capitol.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision means Trump is all but certain to be acquitted by the Senate of the charge of inciting an insurrection by his supporters.
Before moving to final arguments, the proceedings were interrupted for a few hours after House prosecutors, in a surprise move, said they wanted to call witnesses at the trial.
House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said he wanted to call a Republican lawmaker as a witness but eventually agreed with Trump's defense lawyers just to have her testimony entered into evidence.
Trump's lawyers had threatened in response to call witnesses of their own, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, and others.
The Senate voted 55-45 to allow witnesses but senators, House prosecutors and defense lawyers then hammered out an agreement allowing the trial to proceed to closing arguments.
Closing arguments kicked off after the decision about the 55-45 vote in favor of witnesses, which had unsettled members of the Senate.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who earlier this week was one of just six in his party to vote that the trial should continue, threw up his hands when asked if he had expected Saturday's vote on witnesses.
"Shelby says he's seen three of these and this is the craziest," he said, referencing Senator Richard Shelby whose 34-year tenure included the 1998 impeachment of former Democratic President Bill Clinton and Trump's first impeachment trial.
The Senate floor appeared chaotic during and after the vote. Senators clustered together in apparent confusion and Senators Ron Johnson and Mitt Romney engaged in a heated conversation.
The four hours of final arguments will be split equally between both sides with the House prosecutors going first.
A vote on whether to acquit or convict the 74-year-old former Republican president is expected later Saturday afternoon.
Raskin had wanted Representative Jamie Herrera Beutler to testify after she released a statement about the events of Jan 6.
Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, was one of 10 Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach Trump in the House of Representatives.
In her statement, she said Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had called Trump while the attack was ongoing and implored him to call off the rioters.
"When McCarthy finally reached the president on Jan 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was Antifa that had breached the Capitol," Herrera Beutler said.
"McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters," the congresswoman said.
"That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said: 'Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,'" she said.
The US Capitol Building on the third day of President Trump's impeachment trial in Washington, US. (Photo: Reuters)
A CLOSE CALL
Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House on Jan 13 for inciting the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, who were seeking to block congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's Nov 3 election victory.
A conviction in the 100-member Senate - which is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans - would require a two-thirds majority and appears highly unlikely after McConnell said he would vote to acquit.
"While a close call, I am persuaded that impeachments are a tool primarily of removal and therefore we lack jurisdiction," McConnell said in an email to his Republican colleagues.
"The Constitution makes perfectly clear that Presidential criminal misconduct while in office can be prosecuted after the President has left office," he said. "Given these conclusions, I will vote to acquit."
Michael van der Veen, lawyer for former President Donald Trump, departs on the fourth day of the Senate Impeachment trials for former President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US Feb 12, 2021. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/Pool via REUTERS)
Trump's defense lawyers argued on Friday that the former president bears no responsibility for the attack on Congress and wrapped up their presentation in just three hours.
This followed two days of evidence from Democratic impeachment managers centered around harrowing video footage of the mob assault on the Capitol.
Trump's defense lawyers called the impeachment unconstitutional and an "act of political vengeance."
They argued that Trump's rally speech near the White House that preceded the Jan 6 attack, when he told supporters to "fight," was merely rhetorical.
Seeking to turn the table on the Democrats' powerful use of video evidence, defence lawyers played their own compilations showing Democratic lawmakers at different times using the word "fight."
House impeachment managers charge that after losing to Biden, Trump deliberately stoked tension with a campaign of lies claiming there had been mass voter fraud.
On Jan 6 he staged a fiery rally near the White House, calling on the crowd to march on Congress, which was in the process of certifying Biden's victory.
The mob then stormed the Capitol, disrupting the certification. Five people, including a police officer and a woman shot during the unrest, died in the mayhem.
The trial has highlighted the extraordinary danger lawmakers faced on Jan 6, when Trump urged his followers to march on the Capitol and "get wild" in an effort to overturn his election loss. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers had to be rushed into hiding for safety. Five people died in the chaos.
Trump's words that day followed months in which he repeated false claims that Biden's victory was the result of widespread fraud.
When the impeachment article reached the Senate, only six Republicans voted with Democrats to move forward with the trial, rejecting an argument made by other Republican senators that the Constitution does not allow Congress to impeach a president who has already left office.
Security-camera footage shown at the trial showed rioters came perilously close to lawmakers and Pence as they were evacuated from the Senate and House chambers.
SHANGHAI: China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to a World Health Organization-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, one of the team's investigators said, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began.
The team had requested raw patient data on the 174 cases of COVID-19 that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert who is a member of the team.
Such raw data is known as "line listings", he said, and would typically be anonymised but contain details such as what questions were asked of individual patients, their responses and how their responses were analysed.
"That's standard practice for an outbreak investigation," he told Reuters on Saturday (Feb 13) via video call from Sydney, where he is currently undergoing quarantine.
He said that gaining access to the raw data was especially important since only half of the 174 cases had exposure to the Huanan market, the now-shuttered wholesale seafood centre in Wuhan where the virus was initially detected.
"That's why we've persisted to ask for that," he said. "Why that doesn't happen, I couldn't comment. Whether it's political or time or it's difficult ... But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn't available, I don't know. One would only speculate."
While the Chinese authorities provided a lot of material, he said the issue of access to the raw patient data would be mentioned in the team's final report. "The WHO people certainly felt that they had received much much more data than they had ever received in the previous year. So that in itself is an advance."
A summary of the team's findings could be released as early as next week, the WHO said on Friday.
The WHO-led probe had been plagued by delay, concern over access and bickering between Beijing and Washington, which accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticised the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts conducted the first phase of research.
The team, which arrived in China in January and spent four weeks looking into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak, was limited to visits organised by their Chinese hosts and prevented from contact with community members, due to health restrictions. The first two weeks were spent in hotel quarantine.
China's refusal to hand over raw data on the early COVID-19 cases was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
The WHO did not reply to a request from Reuters for comment. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment but Beijing has previously defended its transparency in handling the outbreak and its cooperation with the WHO mission.
HARMONIOUS, WITH ARGUMENTS
Dwyer said the work within the WHO team was harmonious but that there were "arguments" at times with their Chinese counterparts over the interpretation and significance of the data, which he described as "natural" in such probes.
"We might be having a talk about cold chain and they might be more firm about what the data shows than what we might have been, but that's natural. Whether there's political pressure to have different opinions, I don't know. There may well be, but it's hard to know."
Cold chain refers to the transport and trade of frozen food.
Beijing has sought to cast doubt on the notion that the coronavirus originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a conduit.
On Tuesday, Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO delegation, told a news conference that transmission of the virus via frozen food is a possibility, but pointed to market vendors selling frozen animal products including farmed wild animals as a potential pathway that warrants further study.
Embarek also said that the team was not looking further into the theory that the virus escaped from a lab, which it considered highly unlikely. The previous US administration of President Donald Trump had said it suspected the virus may have escaped from a Wuhan lab, which Beijing strongly denies.
"It was a unanimous feeling," Dwyer said. "It wasn't a political sop whatsoever."
