Chinese, Indian troops engage in border conflicts 2 skirmishes have occurred so far this month as talks break down again

Confrontations between soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian Army engaged in border skirmishes on May 5 and 9, reports said Monday (May 25).

On May 5, a conflict erupted between PLA and Indian Army troops near the China-India border close to Pangong Tso (Pangong Lake) in the union territory of Ladakh. The two sides did not use conventional weapons, deciding instead to throw rocks at each other, according to Newtalk.

A total of 250 men joined the melee, with both sides tallying multiple injured.

On May 9, some 150 Chinese and Indian soldiers engaged in another scuffle in the northeastern state of Sikkim. Although mid-level military officials from both countries met on May 18 and 20, the two sides failed to reach an agreement regarding Pangong Tso.

The Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh is still an unresolved issue, as India has rejected China's attempts to curtail the South Asian nation's reach in the region. The lack of a willingness to compromise on both sides has led to a breakdown in negotiations.

In response to the recent confrontations, Indian Army Commander Manoj Mukund Naravane on May 22 went to the 14 Corps headquarters in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, to assess the situation, The Hindu reported. The Indian military subsequently ordered the reinforcement of eastern Ladakh, deploying several infantry battalions to Leh.

According to Newstalk, China has recently dispatched more troops to the border, and its behavior is increasingly aggressive. Chinese military maneuvers in the region fall under the command of the PLA's Western Theater Command.

China and India share a border that stretches approximately 4,056 kilometers.

Due to the lack of clear demarcation lines recognized by both sides, clashes between Chinese and Indian border patrols are common. In 1962, there was a brief border war, which China won.

US adds 33 Chinese entities to export blacklists American companies barred from exporting technologies, services to listed companies, government institutions

 Washington on May 22 added 33 Chinese companies to two different trade blacklists for activities that run contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, including their connections to the People's Liberation Army and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

A year ago, the U.S. added Chinese telecom giant Huawei and 68 non-U.S. affiliates to the list, and last October, an additional 28 Chinese entities were added due to growing concerns over their contributions to human rights violations in China. The companies have been blocked from buying certain American technologies

The new restrictions are believed to be detrimental to the blacklisted Chinese entities, most of which are cybersecurity and AI-focused companies and research institutions, as these are critical to their operations.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has slapped sanctions on 33 Chinese companies based in China, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands deemed to "represent a significant risk of supporting the procurement of items for military end-use in China" and those engaged in "human rights violations and abuses committed in China's campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-tech surveillance against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region."

With regard to the 24 Chinese companies, government-backed research institutions, and one individual that comprise the first sanctions list, American companies will not be allowed to export, re-export, or transfer the regulated items in-country without prior authorization.

As for the nine institutions named on the second list, American companies will be barred from providing them with items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

The 24 Chinese entities on the first list:

• Beijing Cloudmind Technology Co., Ltd.
• Beijing Computational Science Research Center
• Beijing Jincheng Huanyu Electronics Co., Ltd.
• Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research
• Chengdu Fine Optical Engineering Research Center
• China Jiuyuan Trading Corporation
• Cloudminds (Hong Kong) Limited
• Cloudminds Inc.
• Harbin Chuangyue Technology Co., Ltd.
• Harbin Engineering University
• Harbin Institute of Technology
• Harbin Yun Li Da Technology and Development Co., Ltd.
• JCN (HK) Technology Co. Ltd.
• K Logistics (China) Limited
• Kunhai (Yanjiao) Innovation Research Institute
• Peac Institute of Multiscale Science
• Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd.
• Qihoo 360 Technology Company
• Shanghai Nova Instruments Co., Ltd.
• Sichuan Dingcheng Material Trade Co., Ltd.
• Sichuan Haitian New Technology Group Co. Ltd.
• Sichuan Zhonghe Import and Export Trade Co., Ltd.
• Skyeye Laser Technology Limited
• Zhu Jiejin (individual)

The nine Chinese entities on the second list:

• China’s Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science
• Aksu Huafu Textiles Co.
• CloudWalk Technology
• FiberHome Technologies Group
• FiberHome's subsidiary Nanjing FiberHome Starrysky Communication Development
• NetPosa
• NetPosa's subsidiary SenseNets
• Intellifusion
• IS’Vision

China may lose control of three strategically important ports amid coronavirus fallout Changing political tides may cost China control over ports in Australia, Israel, Sri Lanka by Huang Tzu ti

China's maritime Silk Road project could be derailed by fallout from the coronavirus (COVID-19), which has inflicted both economic and political costs on the global powerhouse.

Port Darwin in Australia, the Port of Haifa in Israel, and the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka — three strategically important ports China has sought to control — could all slip through its fingers as a result of the changing global landscape, according to the Indian publication TFIPOST.

The relationship between China and Australia hit a new low during the pandemic after Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an independent inquiry into the origins of the Wuhan virus. China has retaliated with a series of trade sanctions, including imposing barley tariffs and halting beef imports.

As ties deteriorate, voices are calling on the Australian government to take back Port Darwin, which was leased to China in 2015 for 99 years. The lease has drawn heavy criticism, as the port is Asia's gateway to Australia and because it could serve as a base for U.S. military operations.

China is also likely to encounter setbacks in its efforts to operate the Port of Haifa in Israel. The project, deemed a milestone for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), will see the port run by Chinese state-owned company SIPG on a 25-year lease after its opening, slated for 2021.

Given the souring Sino-U.S. relations, Washington could ramp up pressure on the Middle Eastern country to further distance itself from Beijing, TFIPOST stated. Additionally, Israel may consider withdrawing from the deal over its own strained relations with China following the death of a Chinese ambassador in Israel earlier this month, which has triggered an investigation involving a special team from Beijing.

The Indian newspaper believes the losses of the Darwin and Haifa ports could trigger a domino effect, prompting Sri Lanka to review its agreement with China over the Hambantota project. The South Asian country was forced to hand over the port to China for 99 years after failing to repay loans stemming from China's "debt trap diplomacy."

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who assumed power in November, has hinted at a desire to renegotiate with China over the controversial deal.

Swedish Navy Submarines Have A Unique Secret Weapon by H I Sutton

Thanks to trials with the U.S. Navy, Sweden’s submarines are famous for being stealthy. This is largely due to their Air-Independent Power (AIP), which allows them to stay submerged for much longer. It is not unique, however, as other countries now operate AIP submarines.

But Swedish Navy submarines have another capability that is unique. As well as regular torpedoes, they carry special lightweight ones. And this is where it gets secretive: they can launch two at the same time from a single tube.

The Gotland Class submarine has two torpedo tubes dedicated to lightweight torpedoes. Each tube can ... [+]

 H I SUTTON (INSERT SWEDISH ARMED FORCES)

That Swedish submarines use lightweight torpedoes is well documented. The double-tap capability is not. It is known about in some corners of the defense community, but like many topics in underwater warfare it is talked about in hushed tones. Slowly word of this capability has crept out, particularly in Sweden, but it is still virtually unknown. And some details of the capability are still secret.

The weapons used are smaller than regular torpedoes but larger than most other ‘lightweight’ ones. They are optimized to kill enemy submarines, although the latest models can also be used against small warships and even enemy torpedoes.

Unusually they are wire-guided, a feature which is normally only found on larger torpedoes. This allows the submarine to guide them all the way to the target. If the wire breaks, or is cut, then the torpedo goes into fire-and-forget mode using its own sonar. Wire-guidance has been found to be more reliable than fire-and-forget weapons in the confined and crowded Baltic. The torpedoes can be guided around an island to hit a target on the other side.

Two of these smaller torpedoes can be loaded into a single torpedo tube, one behind the other. One or both can then be launched. So the effective number of torpedo tubes is doubled. In practice Swedish submarines are equipped with a mix of 21” (533mm) torpedo tubes for ‘full size’ heavyweight torpedoes and 15.75” (400mm) tubes for the special lightweight torpedoes.

This mixed load-out allows the current Gotland Class submarines to shoot up to 8 torpedoes at once despite only having 6 torpedo tubes. Four would be heavyweight torpedoes, each in its own tube, and four would be lightweight ones in double-loaded tubes. The earlier Näcken Class, which had 8 torpedo tubes, could launch 10 torpedoes at a time (6 heavyweight, 4 lightweight).

Official photograph of a Gotland Class submarine. It is armed with six torpedo tubes but can launch ... [+]

 SWEDISH ARMED FORCES (JONAS HELMERSSON, VIKTOR PERSSON, RICKARD TÖRNHJELM, JIMMIE ADAMSSON, JOAKIM NORDSTRAND)

The service history of Sweden’s lightweight torpedoes started in 1963 with the introduction of ‘Torped-41’. Today Swedish submarines carry the 4th generation Torped-45 which entered service in the mid-1990s. The next-generation Torped-47 is expected to enter service in 2022. It will arm the current A-19 Gotland class and future A-26 Blekinge Class.

Although Sweden is alone in deploying these torpedoes on submarines, other countries are looking at similar ones. The U.S. Navy drafted the Common Very Lightweight Torpedo (CVLWT) concept over 10 years ago. That weapon is appears to have morphed into the VLWT (Very Lightweight Torpedo) recently unveiled by Northrop Grumman NOC. Although that has been proposed for submarines at some point in the future, Sweden may have a unique capability for some years to come.

TikTok is breeding a new batch of child stars. Psychologists say what comes next won't be pretty. Rachel E. Greenspan

• 
• The biggest stars of 2020 are kids who have gone viral on social media. 
• Experts say these young influencers are even more at risk for developing problems than previous generations of child stars, as their lives are constantly broadcast (and observed by) millions worldwide. 
• With social media, people have become obsessed with their own visibility. Whether they're aware of it or not, influencers are constantly fighting to be seen and battling that "threat of invisibility," said Ciarán Mc Mahon, PhD, the author of "The Psychology of Social Media."
• Child stars often become addicted to fame, and thousands of influencers fighting for attention may be extremely disappointed when they are one day unable to keep it up. 

• In 1968, Andy Warhol predicted that in the future, "everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes."  He was right, and that was before TikTok, where all it takes to blow up is an iPhone and a pretty face. But Warhol couldn't have predicted that TikTok's algorithm would quickly sweep up a huge group of children, making them some of the most famous people in the world in the blink of an eye.

  The most-followed creator on TikTok, Charli D'Amelio, turned 16 on May 1. Loren Gray, whom D'Amelio recently overtook for the top spot on the short-form video platform, turned 18 in April.

  Experts warn that these young influencers will face the typical hurdles of child fame, but with the additional complication of real-time social media surveillance by millions and an algorithmically programmed addiction to the instant gratification of a never-ending barrage of notifications. 

  "We've had cases of child stars in different eras and different times. But this is a more enhanced and hyper version of that," Ciarán Mc Mahon, PhD, the author of "The Psychology of Social Media," told Insider. "I don't know how that will work out, but history would suggest that it's not going to be pretty." 

• Adapting to life in the spotlight is hard enough for grownups. For young influencers, that is compounded with incessant social media attention. 

  While the advent of social media apps like TikTok and Instagram have given the world more ways to connect, it's also changed the meaning of fame and reshaped the path to becoming a celebrity. Perhaps most notably is the fact that everyday children are so easily vaulted into the spotlight with little predictability.

  "Your ability to assess risk, your ability to make some cognitive judgments to plan ahead — all of those things are cognitive skills that develop over that period of time," said media psychologist Pamela Rutledge, PhD, speaking about the period of life before 25, before the "rational" part of the brain is fully developed. Experiencing fame during adolescence, Rutledge said, makes it even harder for celebrities to keep a handle on reality. "Everyone wants to be famous. But in fact, for most of us, that's not the real world." 

• 

• Former and current members of the TikTok collective Hype House. 

  The Hype House/Instagram

• These influencer-celebrities are at risk for the same challenges faced by traditional Hollywood child stars, made infamous by the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Drew Barrymore, and Michael Jackson. 

  "From the time I became famous in 'E.T.,' my life got really weird," Barrymore told People in 1989 of her experience with child fame. "One day I was a little girl, and the next day I was being mobbed by people who wanted me to sign my autograph or pose for pictures or who just wanted to touch me. It was frightening. I was this 7-year-old who was expected to be going on a mature 29."

• Barrymore's experience of being thrust into the spotlight at a young age has been echoed by countless other child stars throughout more than a century of Hollywood history as early fame has led many to a host of problems, including drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, and familial struggles. This is no hard-kept secret: It's been documented thoroughly by celebrity tabloids for years. 

  It's also a phenomenon that has been studied by psychologists including Donna Rockwell, PhD, and David Giles, PhD, whose 2009 article in the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology identified "four temporal phases" in the mind of a celebrity: "love/hate, addiction, acceptance, and adaptation." 

  "When a person becomes famous, there's so much attention on the famous person that, neurologically, they forget how to tune back out — in other words, how to have appropriate and healthy empathy for other people," Rockwell, a researcher and clinical psychologist who specializes in celebrity mental health, told Insider. "It isn't even a choice when it comes down to it. There's so much incoming attention that the neurons lose their memory on what's necessary, as far as in extending an empathetic outreach." 

  Rockwell added that even "for the most grounded of people, getting swept up into the spotlight of fame is very difficult to withstand, to stay grounded. So for a child, it's 10 times more difficult. It's exponentially more challenging because they haven't even developed a full self yet."

  For children and teens, identity can easily morph and become lost in fame, with their notoriety becoming an engrained part of their personality. "It isn't like somebody is giving you a part to play in or writing a script for you. You're having to do this sort of creation all the time," said Rutledge. "At what point is it you, and at what point is it this persona that you've created?" 

  The addiction to social media already poses a problem for most kids in Gen Z, whether they have five million followers or 500. 

  According to "The 'online brain': how the Internet may be changing our cognition," published in the June 2019 edition of the World Psychiatry medical journal, social media attention of any kind can "directly quantify our social success (or failure), by providing clear metrics" such as likes, followers, and views. "Given the addictive nature of this immediate, self‐defining feedback, social media companies may even capitalize upon this to maximally engage users. However, growing evidence indicates that relying on online feedback for self‐esteem can have adverse effects on young people," the report found. 

  When that quantified social success, or lack thereof, is magnified in the form of fame, it can be extremely difficult to find a sense of self-worth outside of that attention. With social media, people become obsessed with their own visibility. Whether they're aware of it or not, influencers are constantly fighting to be seen and battling this "threat of invisibility," Mc Mahon said.

  "The algorithms that underlie practically every social media service today force us to compete for visibility," Mc Mahon said. "As such, these teenagers may now feel themselves in an extraordinary bind – competing against each other, and the newsfeed algorithms in order to maintain visibility, a competition in which only the social media services succeed."

  The concept of viral social media fame has become so ingrained in our society that it's almost natural for people to hope their next post will take off, Mc Mahon said. "I think most of us harbor a slight desire, and maybe an unconscious one, that 'this is the tweet that will go viral,'" he said. "Of course, for the vast majority of us, it isn't."

  Fame itself is one of the most addictive drugs of all — and it's the perpetual need to chase that high that can lead celebrities down a troubled path. 

  Many child celebrities turn to drug use and alcohol because of their need to satisfy an addiction to fame. "You get a physiological reward when people like you. It triggers your reward system. And so if you lose that, then you start looking for other means of triggering that," Rutledge said, explaining that becoming addicted to fame leaves you "vulnerable" to other drugs. 

  Both Rutledge and Mc Mahon compared this phenomenon to the experience of a singer performing for a stadium of fans. They become high off of that energy. "It's an incredible feeling," Mc Mahon said of fame. 

  But at the end of the night, they go back to their hotel room, and they're often alone. "There's always a risk if there's that vulnerability, if you really are feeding off that fandom as something that's fueling you rather than a fueling of a sort of a larger life goal that you have," Rutledge said. 

  Shia LaBoeuf, who recently wrote and starred in a film based on his own troubled experience as a child star, "Honey Boy," told The Hollywood Reporter last year that he had become "addicted to that kudos" celebrities are inundated with. "It kind of fueled my way of working for a long time — just pining your own pain, and holding on to it, and not really ever dealing with it or questioning it, but just keeping it in a little bottle that you can pop the top on whenever it's needed, when the switch needs to be flipped," he said. 

  Beyond drug and alcohol use, which LaBoeuf has struggled with, that constant attention can give people an altered sense of empathy. There's an "uneven give and take" with fame, where fans of a celebrity can fawn over this public figure, Rockwell said. "When people have a lot of attention put on them — child stars, social media influencers — all of that attention can lead to acquired situational narcissism, ASN, even if that person had all the love and adequate mirroring in their early life as they possibly could have wished for." 

  Danny Bonaduce, one of the child stars interviewed for Rockwell's research, was a huge star in the 1970s for his role in the hit sitcom "The Partridge Family." Bonaduce, who is now 60, has spoken publicly about his drug use. "He says that he's been addicted to almost every substance known to man, and the most addictive of all of them is fame itself," Rockwell said of Bonaduce's self-reporting for her study. 

  Still, Rockwell said Bonaduce and others she interviewed in her research have said they wouldn't give up their fame, and the access and opportunities that came along with it. "It's hard to give that up in the end," Rockwell said.

  Fame's ephemeral nature is heightened on social media, where new videos and teens go viral every minute. There are thousands of teens around the world who are "famous" on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and most of them will not be able to uphold that level of fame for long. 

  "The lifestyle that they're currently engaging is probably very enjoyable, it's very exciting and stimulating. They must know in their heart of hearts that they can't continue like that for a very long period of time," Mc Mahon said. "My advice to them would be, quite simply, to think about their exit plan." 

  Experts say the best way to be well-adjusted while in the spotlight is to use your influence "for good." 

  Many influencers have already perhaps unintentionally discovered what experts say is the best way to protect oneself against the dangers of fame. By using influence to help the world and raise awareness about causes you're passionate about, you're actually establishing a deeper sense of who you are as a person. 

  "If you're using your celebrity for good, you can actually come out of it better because you are developing an internal self," Rockwell said. "You are being someone that you can be proud of. You are living out your values." 

  One example of this is the teenager who filmed makeup tutorials on TikTok while talking about China's treatment of Muslims as they work in internment camps in Xinjian. And both Charli and Dixie D'Amelio, two of the most famous people on TikTok, have already participated in multiple efforts to help the collective good, including a recent anti-bullying project with Unicef and promoting body positivity. Dixie D'Amelio told Insider in a previous interview that she loves using her platform to "raise awareness and money for good causes." 

  Research suggests that kids who take advantage of that opportunity in a positive way can lead to better-adjusted adult lives, something that all psychologists interviewed for this piece agreed on. 

• But the onus is also on parents of these kids to keep them grounded, Mc Mahon said, though that is another challenge in and of itself. Certain measures, like a parent trying to take away their kid's phone, will likely "backfire," especially during a time like the coronavirus pandemic when everyone is stuck inside the home. "There has to be reasoned and careful conversations around these things," Mc Mahon said. 

  Rockwell said she recommends child stars work with coaches and therapists "to help the child remain grounded and stay centered so they can withstand this impact of fame." 

  Still, there's another group who holds some responsibility here: the general public. "There's also a responsibility on the rest of us who are consuming the content that they produce and what exactly we're rewarding," Mc Mahon said. "We're rewarding it because we have created our society now into a kind of spectacle for everyone to participate in."

Desperate Indian girl bikes 745 miles home with disabled dad

NEW DELHI (AP) — From her village in eastern India, 15-year-old Jyoti Kumari reflected on her desperate 1,200-kilometer (745-mile) bicycle journey home with her disabled father that has drawn international praise.

“I had no other option,” she said Sunday. “We wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t cycled to my village.”

Kumari said that she and her father risked starvation had they stayed in Gurugram, a suburb of New Delhi, with no income amid India’s coronavirus lockdown.

Her father, whose injury in an accident left him unable to walk, had earned a living by driving an auto rickshaw. But with all nonessential travel banned, he found himself among millions of newly unemployed. Their landlord demanded rent they couldn’t pay and threatened to evict them, Kumari said.

So she decided to buy a bicycle and, like thousands of other Indian migrant workers have done since March, make her way home.

As the temperature climbed, Kumari pedaled for 10 days, with her father riding on the back of the hot-pink bike. They survived on food and water given by strangers, and only once did Kumari give her legs a break with a short lift on a truck.

The daughter and father arrived in Darbhanga, their village in Bihar state, more than a week ago, reuniting with Kumari’s mother and brother-in-law, who’d left the capital region after the lockdown was imposed on March 25. Kumari, an eighth-grade student who moved from the village to Gurugram in January to take care of her dad, stayed on.

She said Sunday that she was still exhausted from the trip.

“It was a difficult journey,” she said. “The weather was too hot, but we had no choice. I had only one aim in my mind, and that was to reach home.”

Upon their arrival, village officials placed Kumari’s father in a quarantine center, a policy many state and local governments in India have implemented to try to keep returning migrants from spreading the coronavirus. They are now all quarantining at home.

India’s ongoing two-month lockdown appears to have staved off an immediate spike in virus cases, buying the country time to build up reserves of medical supplies and expand intensive care unit capacity. India has confirmed 125,102 cases, including 3,867 deaths.

But the lockdown triggered a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of poor people heading back to distant villages on foot, carrying the elderly on shoulders and with small children slumped over rolling suitcases. Dozens of people have died on the way, struck by trains or trucks, from hunger or suicide.

India’s expansive railway system, the country’s lifeline, was closed to passenger service as part of the lockdown. Buses, planes and taxis were also banned. But earlier this month, the government resumed limited train travel for migrants wishing to return home.

For India’s economy, mostly composed of informal sector jobs, the lockdown has been crippling. The government has been easing restrictions in recent weeks to allow more people to go back to work.

Kumari heard about the special trains, but her father, unable to walk, wouldn’t have been able to reach the railway platform. So she decided they would bike.

Kumari’s journey caught the attention of the Cycling Federation of India. The racing body, which sends teams to the Olympics, has offered to bring her back to New Delhi by train for a tryout next month. It also resonated in Washington, with President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump calling it “a beautiful feat of endurance and love” on Twitter.

Kumari said that while she was happy with the recognition, she hadn’t cycled her father home in pursuit of fame.

“It was a decision taken in desperation,” she said.

Taiwan rejects Beijing's reiteration of 'one China' principle Taiwan is a democratic country, China has no right to make irresponsible remarks: MOFA. By Kelvin Chen

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Sunday evening (May 24) responded to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's (王毅) mention of the “one China principle" during a televised press conference earlier that day.

During a press conference for the third plenary session of the 13th National People's Congress in Beijing, Chinese media asked Wang if China was worried Taiwan-related issues would have a further negative impact on Sino-U.S. relations given that Taiwan-U.S. ties have improved substantially, CNA reported. Wang reiterated the “one China principle," adding that the Chinese government and World Health Organization (WHO) have made proper arrangements for the “Taiwan area” to participate in global health affairs.

He stated that Taiwan had shared information on Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic prevention with the WHO and its members. Wang assured that channels for cooperation and professional exchanges are completely unobstructed and denied that there had ever been technical hindrances or gaps in epidemic prevention.

In response to Wang’s comments, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a press release declaring that Taiwan is a recognized democratic country. It also stressed that only the people of Taiwan have the right to decide their future and that only Taiwan’s elected government has the right to represent the Taiwanese.

MOFA further stated that China has no right to make such "irresponsible remarks."

The Chinese government wants to impose “unification” on Taiwan regardless of the wishes of the nation’s citizens, MOFA expressed. The ministry went on to say that this only serves to highlight Beijing’s contempt for public opinion, hostility toward democracy, and incompatibility with democratic countries.

MOFA also pointed out that President Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) inauguration speech on May 20 emphasized Taiwan’s adherence to the principles of “peace, reciprocity, freedom, and democracy” in cross-strait exchanges and promotion of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan rejects Beijing's “one country, two systems,” which would downplay Taiwan’s political status and undermine the status quo, the ministry declared. It concluded by saying the actions of the Chinese government cannot stop Taiwan's determination to contribute to the world.

African countries ‘may be spared the worst of the pandemic’ While the virus is present in all African countries, most countries have recorded fewer than 1,000 cases, a UN group says The continent has reported slightly more than 100,000 cases, with 3,000 deaths. by Jevans Nyabiage

John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, says the continent is not experiencing a flood of Covid-19 patients. Photo: Reuters

On Monday, Mauritius told the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), that it was on the verge of beating 

the deadly coronavirus

.

The Indian Ocean island nation, off the east coast of Africa, said it had not reported new cases of the disease since the last positive case reported almost a month ago.

“As of today, there are no active Covid-19 cases. Mauritius has shown that it can be one of the countries that can beat coronavirus and it has done so by being very proactive,” Health Minister Dr Kailesh Kumar Singh Jagutpal told the WHA.

Jagutpal said the island took precautions against the virus as far back as January 23 after the first cases of deaths in the central Chinese city of Wuhan were reported.

He said that acting quickly, increasing testing, providing personal protective equipment and imposing lockdowns had helped the country escape a potential catastrophe. When three cases of Covid-19 were detected on March 19, the country imposed nationwide confinement for two weeks, which has been extended three times to June 1. Mauritius had since reported 322 cases with 10 deaths.

Mauritius represents a small group of countries in Africa, including Seychelles, that have managed to slow down or contain the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

While several countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria and South Africa have in the past month recorded a surge in coronavirus cases, the increase has not been as dramatic as in other parts of the world including Europe and the United States. There were concerns in war-torn nations like Somalia and South Sudan that ongoing conflict might make containment difficult.

At the start of the coronavirus crisis, a number of observers predicted that people would die en masse on the continent as health care systems were overwhelmed.

In April, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) predicted that between 300,000 and 3.3 million Africans could lose their lives in the pandemic, depending on interventions to stop the spread. A few weeks later, the WHO forecast that if containment measures failed, Africa could see 29 million to 44 million infected in the first year of the pandemic – and 83,000 to 190,000 dead.

An Alexandra township resident gets tested for the new coronavirus in Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 29. Photo: AP

On Wednesday Uneca’s new policy brief on the impact of Covid-19 said early estimates were pessimistic regarding the pandemic’s impact on the continent.

“The relatively low numbers of Covid-19 cases reported thus far have raised hopes that African countries may be spared the worst of the pandemic,” Uneca said. The report said while the virus was present in all African countries, most countries had recorded fewer than 1,000 cases.

However, caution was warranted, as “these are early days in the life cycle of a disease that is still not fully understood and where we have seen repeated patterns of first slow, then exponential growth in the number of cases”.

Early analysis by the WHO suggests that Africa’s lower mortality rate may be the result, in part, of demography. Africa is the youngest continent, with more than 60 per cent of the population under the age of 25. Older adults have a significantly increased risk of developing a severe illness. In Europe, for example, nearly 95 per cent of coronavirus deaths occurred in those older than 60.

“For now Covid-19 has made a soft landfall in Africa, and the continent has been spared the high numbers of deaths which have devastated other regions of the world,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa. “It is possible our youth dividend is paying off and leading to fewer deaths. But we must not be lulled into complacency as our health systems are fragile and are less able to cope with a sudden increase in cases.”

Moeti said Ivory Coast had also reduced the spread of cases to the periphery by building on existing primary health care interventions, while South Africa and Mauritania had mobilised thousands of community health workers.

As of Thursday, the continent of 1.3 billion people had reported just over 100,000 cases, with 3,000 deaths. This compared with more than 1.5 million confirmed cases with more than 94,000 deaths in the US, and 1.7 million cases with over 166,000 deaths in Europe.

Matthew Kavanagh, a professor of global health at Georgetown University, said the numbers were probably the result of a combination of low reporting and successful response in several African countries.

“We have seen strong mobilisation of community-based efforts to screen, trace, and isolate people with Covid-19 and that is showing clear benefits,” Kavanagh said.

He said South Africa was a good example of where there had been a substantial number of cases, but the national response appeared to be succeeding so far in blunting the impact of the outbreak.

At the same time, Kavanagh said, most African countries were not able to get sufficient testing supplies and therefore the number of cases reported was almost certainly undercounting the actual disease burden.

“It is also true that most countries on the continent do not have strong vital records systems – so it is very hard to say what portion of deaths is occurring due to Covid-19,” he added.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said new infections remained nearly the same for the past two weeks. From May 14 to May 20, Africa had 21,677 new cases, compared to 20,771 new infections from May 7 to May 13.

“We have not seen significant changes there,” said Dr John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC.

Nkengasong, the man leading Africa’s response to the pandemic, said some projections showed that countries like Kenya would record about 20,000-50,000 cases of Covid-19 before Easter but that was not the case. As of Friday, Kenya had recorded 1,161 cases and 50 deaths.

Nkengasong said that as early as the first week of February when the continent had no cases of Covid-19, several countries started an aggressive approach to scale up diagnostics.

“We pooled people into Senegal from 16 countries and trained them on Covid-19 diagnostics,” he said.

The selection was based on countries that had scheduled flights to China, which was the first country to report coronavirus cases. The continent’s first case of Covid-19 was in Egypt on February 14, followed by others in Nigeria, “but thereafter we had massive importations from Europe”.

“This is a very important lesson we have to learn, that a disease outbreak anywhere in the world would be a threat everywhere in the world,” Nkengasong said.

He said Africa’s strategy remained to ramp up testing, tracking and tracing, adding that the continent had almost hit its target of distributing a million test kits last month.

Nkengasong said that in coming weeks the Africa CDC aimed to reach its next target of distributing 10 to 15 million new test kits. The target is to test 1 per cent of Africa’s population, or about 13 million people. But so far, he said, between 1.3 million and 1.4 million had been tested for the coronavirus, with South Africa in the lead in terms of the number of tests due to its stronger health systems.

He said it was assumed that the number of infections was probably higher than the total of reported cases so far, as testing capacity was limited. But he was also encouraged that there was no surge in the number of community deaths.

“We are also not seeing massive flooding of our hospitals because of Covid-19 infected patients. So, we are encouraged,” Nkengasong said on Thursday.

He added that if the worst-case scenario of 3 million infections and 300,000 deaths eventuated, that “would be overwhelming for sure since our health systems are weak. We do not build health systems when we need them, you build health systems before you need them.”