China has decided to convene its much-delayed Two Sessions — the annual meetings of the national legislature and the top political advisory body — in late May amid signs that the ruling Communist Party believes it has made strides to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.
 
Both meetings will be halved to last only one week, with the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) opening on May 21, and the National People’s Congress (NPC) on May 22, state-run Xinhua News Thursday reported.
 
It remains unclear if some 3,000 lawmakers and 2,000 political advisers from across the country will attend the meetings in person or virtually.
   
Convening the meetings sends a political signal that China, the country where the pandemic began, has brought the coronavirus under control, observers say.
 Challenges ahead
 
But challenges remain for the top leadership to address the economic fallout from the global pandemic and growing confrontations with foreign powers, including the United States, observers add.
 
The meetings will set out programs for the continued containment of the pandemic and its economic and social fallout, Steve Tsang, director of SOAS China Institute at the University of London, said in an email to VOA.
 
Tsang believes there will not be any political fallout to address since President Xi Jinping will be presented as having triumphed and done well against the public health crisis.
 
That is because both meetings often work as rubber stamps to endorse the top leadership’s policies and thus leave little room to challenge its authority or for free flow of ideas, said Fan Shih-Ping, a professor of political science at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.FILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for the closing session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, March 15, 2019.Focus on the economy
 
According to Xinhua News, the Two Sessions will roll out a series of policies and measures to spur development at home and help reactivate the global supply chains and economy.  
 
China will also reconfirm its goal to achieve the building of a moderately prosperous society as slated by 2020, despite the epidemic, Xinhua reported.
 
The country will further transform external pressure into motivation for deeper reform and opening up and focusing on running China’s affairs well, it added.
 
Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, said the annual meetings are often inward-looking when discussing China’s domestic affairs.
 
This year, restarting the economy is no doubt the primary focus, in addition to public health issues.
 
Thompson expects key issues on the agenda will include setting a new economic growth target, down from its previously earmarked 6%; giving a clear guidance of economic priorities; and appropriating resources efficiently without creating any morale hazard while building more infrastructure to improve both consumption and productivity.
 
He says the goal to build a moderately prosperous society by 2020 will be in doubt and will require adjustments.
 Political undercurrents  
 
While the inward-looking meetings provide a venue for Chinese officials to fine-tune their top domestic policies, it is also a time when political undercurrents and key concerns surface, for example, criticism over Xi’s role in China’s initial cover-up of the virus outbreak.
 
However, as Xi still has firm control of China’s propaganda apparatus, and those who were affected during the outbreak have been marginalized, it looks like “there is no organized opposition to Xi” this year, Thompson said.    
 
“If there’s one weak spot that Xi Jinping has it is that he has not managed foreign relations well. He’s antagonized relationships between China and many other countries, particularly critically important countries. Those relationships have deteriorated, and rivals to Xi Jinping can hold that against him,” he said.FILE – Delegates leave the Great Hall of the People after the closing session of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, March 15, 2019.Such criticism is echoed within party circles, but not repeated loudly, Thompson noted.
 
On top of that, China has often looked at foreign affairs as a secondary priority unless they are for the benefit of improving domestic development, which suggests the Xi administration may not need a strong international relationship, according to Thompson.
 
Fan, of National Taiwan Normal University, agreed that Xi looks set to continue to tighten his grip, as his rivals inside the party’s top echelon have been weakened and are leaderless. And Xi’s firm control of the military helps boost his power.
 Desinicization
 
Fan says the global trend of desinicization is solid and that deteriorating foreign relations will hurt China’s chance of getting international cooperation.
 
Fan defines the trend as growing anti-China sentiments, a lack of trust in the Communist leadership and negative views toward China’s propaganda campaign.
 
“I doubt that it will substantially hurt China’s diplomatic relations. But with mutual trust being weakened, there will be limited opportunities for (international) cooperation. Take his One Belt, One Road initiatives as an example. There’s a big challenge ahead, as some African countries may be quitting,” Fan said.
 
Yuan Nansheng, who formerly served as a Chinese diplomat in India and the United States, warned in an interview with a Beijing-based magazine that the coronavirus pandemic would change the world order and that China, which has enjoyed decades of strategic opportunities, would next experience a certain degree of desinicization.
 
He said that some Chinese have shown “misguided national pride” in viewing the spread of the virus overseas with a condescending attitude.
 
Yuan expects the trend of globalization to reverse to a certain degree, further straining U.S.-China relations, although he thinks it is impossible for both economies to decouple.   
 
He also warned that the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization and other international organizations were likely to weaken and falter, which will allow the U.S. and its allies to establish new global agencies as they distance themselves from China. 
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The Samraung Health Center in the Bati district of Takeo province is tucked behind an Acleda Bank branch and opposite the local school.   Sitting alone in one of the rooms, Yeu Chhengly is busy on his phone. He runs the health center where to be tested for COVID-19, a person with symptoms must also have a travel history suggesting the likelihood of exposure to the highly contagious and potentially deadly virus believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, late last year. This approach is being applied to the nearly 90,000 Cambodian migrant workers who have returned from Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia since March to celebrate the three-day Cambodian New Year that began April 14 or to avoid COVID-19 travel restrictions.  All of these workers were placed in isolation at home, with the Ministry of Health reporting that only 410 returnees were tested for the virus, all returning negative. Unlike many other countries, Cambodia has enough test kits to last until September, according to officials who anticipate availability will increase as global production ramps up. Provincial travel by about 30,000 local garment workers is also being used to flag potential COVID-19 cases. The government canceled the annual Khmer New Year holidays in mid-April because of concerns garment workers from Phnom Penh would travel to the provinces, potentially spreading the virus. This includes travel to hotspots like Sihanoukville, where 31 French tourists and two Cambodian tour guides tested positive for the novel coronavirus in late March.   Yeu Chhengly, the health center’s director, is eager to talk about the coronavirus pandemic. As of Monday, Cambodia had 122 confirmed cases and 119 recoveries. The government has recorded no deaths from the coronavirus, and it has been 15 days since a new case was reported.  He described 11 Cambodian migrant workers who had returned from Thailand to his commune and how eight of them had finished their 14-day quarantine period.   “We educate people that within 14 days if they have coughs, fevers or sore throats they should go to see a doctor, and we will report them to the health department,” Yeu Chhengly said.    Yeu Chhengly said the basic health screening, including temperature checks, were limited to those who had returned from abroad, or as the Ministry of Health puts it, “individuals with a recent travel history.”   The Roveang Health Center in Takeo province’s Bati district has seen patients with flu-like symptoms but if there was no recent travel history, they were treated as the “normal flu.” (Ananth Baliga/VOA) District residents who had walked in over the past few weeks with coughs and other flulike symptoms, but with no recent travel history, were being treated as having “the normal flu,” Yeu Chhengly said.   “Some people are locals living here,” he said. “They cannot be infected because they are local, they just have the normal flu. We only report based on the patients’ [travel] history.”   Yeu Chhengly says that while it is hard to make an assessment of which cases were the flu and which were COVID-19, he emphasized to VOA Khmer reporters that these procedures were working effectively. Takeo province had no confirmed positive cases, he said.   His assertion ties in with the government’s narrative that cases in Cambodia have been linked to foreigners or citizens returning from overseas, which lets officials dismiss claims that there could be local clusters or community transmissions involving Cambodian citizens.    Worldwide, as countries contemplate emerging from lockdowns to restart their economies, experts see widespread testing for COVID-19 as a crucial steppingstone because knowing where the virus is spreading is key to relaxing social distancing and returning to a more normal life. “I’ve mentioned many times the very important thing is testing, testing, testing,” the World Health Organization’s director in Cambodia, Dr. Ai Lilan, said April 13.   She praised Cambodia’s efforts in dealing with the 122 positive cases recorded so far but said Cambodia needed to create its own testing strategy. The Cambodian Health Ministry has not been very clear about the country’s testing strategy.     FILE – A member of the non-profit Cambodian Children’s Fund sprays disinfectant to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus in the slum neighborhood of Stung Meanchey in southern Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 24, 2020.On April 27, the Ministry of Health said it had conducted 11,576 tests since Cambodia’s first confirmed case was identified on January 27, with some 7,500 people having been tested so far.   In the seven-day period preceding April 27, Cambodia conducted 1,784 tests, officials said. Cambodia has the capacity to perform 600 tests a day in facilities at the Institute Pasteur du Cambodge and National Institute of Public Health.  Early on, the ministry believed that most cases in Cambodia were imported and tested only people with a history of travel outside the country, as well as those identified through contact tracing.    FILE – Students line up to sanitize their hands to avoid the contact of coronavirus before their morning class at a high school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 28, 2020.After a few recent cases emerged in Phnom Penh, Health Minister Mam Bunheng suggested that it was likely there was small-scale community transmission in the capital.  Even with provincial travel, only the 30,000 workers are being screened for COVID-19 symptoms, though movement between the provinces has resumed after the holidays.    Cambodia could soon have no confirmed, active cases, according to Health Ministry statistics, which could prompt the authorities to consider removing restrictions placed on businesses, educational activities and the general public.  However, there is skepticism over the government’s COVID-19 case tally and testing strategies, according to comments posted on social media.   Back in Takeo’s Bati district, Chea Sreng has roped off access to his office at the Roveang Health Center where he is the director.   Much like his colleague at the Samraung Health Center, Chea Sreng is focused on the Ministry of Health guidelines, saying it was unwise to diverge from them.   When people come to his health center with flulike symptoms, he recommends COVID-19 testing merely for those with travel histories. For now, he is focused on returning migrant workers.   If there is no recent travel history, he said, doctors will check for other respiratory diseases, like tuberculosis, but not for the novel coronavirus.   “Those who are without travel histories but are having such symptoms, they have the normal flu,” he said. “Only if migrant workers are having suspected symptoms should that, then, be tested.”    
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New rumors about Kim Jong Un pour in daily. The North Korean leader is dead. Or he’s very ill. Or maybe he’s just recuperating in his luxury compound, or isolating himself from the coronavirus.As speculation about his health builds, an underlying question looms for professional spies, policymakers, academics and curious news consumers alike.What do we really know about the man who leads North Korea?The answer is crucial because Kim’s intentions, and the as-yet-unknown state of his health, play an outsized role in the workings of Northeast Asia, an uneasy collection of wary neighbors at the best of times and home to two of the three biggest economies in the world and a huge buildup of American military machinery and manpower.Sandwiched amid goliaths, North Korea is a small, impoverished, extraordinarily proud nation that through sheer force of will — and a relentless cult of personality built around a single family — has been at the center of a half-century security headache for its neighbors.No matter how successful China, South Korea and Japan become — and their transformation from war, poverty and domestic infighting into political and economic might has been spectacular — North Korea and its single-minded pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles meant to protect the Kim family has made itself impossible to ignore, holding the region and Washington hostage to its narrow ambitions.The disappearanceThere’s not much to go on here despite the building media coverage.Some unconfirmed news reports say Kim is in fragile condition or even a vegetative state following heart surgery.The South Korean government, however, maintains that Kim still appears to be in power and that there have been no signs that something big has happened in North Korea.What’s uncontested is that Kim hasn’t appeared in public since an April 11 meeting focused on the coronavirus. This sort of vanishing act has happened before, but what has set rumors ablaze now is that for the first time as leader he missed the most important holiday of the North Korean year, the April 15 celebration of his grandfather’s birth.There have been no photographs and no videos of the leader in nearly three weeks, only state media reports of him sending written greetings to world leaders or citizens of merit.The manThose looking to understand Kim face a problem. Much of what the outside world sees is filtered through relentless North Korean propaganda meant to build him into an infallible paragon of leadership.Add to that vaguely sourced or misleading outside media reports and the extreme difficulty of cracking North Korea’s ultra-secrecy surrounding anything to do with the leader, and the picture that emerges of Kim is often more mosaic than profile.In South Korea, he is seen as both demon and statesman. He has repeatedly threatened to burn Seoul to the ground. He has also rolled out the red carpet for a visit to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, by South Korea’s president and sent his own sister south for the 2018 Olympics.In the West, portrayals of Kim often run to caricature. His broken friendship with Dennis Rodman, the former basketball star he reportedly idolized as a schoolboy; the rumors about his extreme love of cheese and his allegedly creative ways of disposing of officials who displease him.Then there’s the stunning series of summits over the last two years with the leaders of Russia, China, the United States and South Korea.Kim was likely born in 1984 and attended boarding school for several years in Switzerland. Early on, some observers argued that his time in the West would lead him to eventually embrace Chinese-style reforms.That has not happened so far, though he has taken a markedly different approach to leadership than his publicity-shy father, Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.Outside governments and experts initially questioned the ability of a man then in his 20s to lead, but Kim Jong Un quickly consolidated power. He ordered the 2013 execution of his uncle and mentor, Jang Song Thaek, who was accused of treason. Kim is also suspected of ordering the assassination of his estranged half brother, and potential rival, at a Malaysian airport in 2017.Kim has shown a growing confidence on the world stage, most clearly with the high-stakes diplomacy that followed a run of nuclear and missile tests in 2017 that had many fearing war.The sight of a North Korean leader meeting with his South Korean and U.S. rivals was extraordinary, though it’s not yet clear whether the diplomacy will settle an uneasy region.Kim entered 2020 vowing to bolster his nuclear deterrent in the face of “gangster-like” U.S. economic sanctions, and he supervised a series of weapons launches and military drills in March.Much of what happens now will depend on Kim’s health.North Korea, despite its poverty, has long commanded world attention because of its sustained, belligerent pursuit of what it calls self-defensive measures in response to U.S. hostility — and what critics call an illegal accumulation of nuclear bombs.There’s debate about whether North Korea ever intended to give up its nuclear weapons during the summits with Washington and Seoul. But the diplomacy seems inconceivable without Kim.That raises fears, during a potential moment of massive political instability, of a return to threats and increasingly powerful weapons tests meant to perfect the nuclear weapons seen as the only real guarantee of the Kim family’s power. 
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With the State Department soon to release its report assessing Hong Kong’s autonomy, the United States has expressed concern about what it sees as China’s heavy hand in Hong Kong.“We continue to monitor with growing concern Beijing’s increasing efforts to interfere with Hong Kong’s governance. The erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms is inconsistent with the promises that the Chinese Communist Party itself made under ‘one country, two systems,’ ” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a news briefing Wednesday.”Any effort to impose draconian national security legislation on Hong Kong would be inconsistent with Beijing’s promises and would impact American interests there,” he told reporters.Pompeo’s remarks came as the State Department was due to submit a report to Congress on the U.S. assessment of Hong Kong’s autonomous status. A U.S. law requires the State Department to certify that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify the favorable U.S. trading terms that have helped it maintain its position as a world financial center.Political tensions have escalated in Hong Kong after Beijing’s top representative office in the city said it was not bound by a law that restricts interference by other mainland Chinese agencies in the former British colony.Two systemsHong Kong returned to Beijing in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” framework that granted the city broad freedoms not seen in mainland China.In recent weeks, Hong Kong’s law enforcement authorities arrested 15 pro-democracy activists, including Martin Lee, 81, a move the U.S. condemned.FILE – Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy figure Jimmy Lai is arrested by police at his home in Hong Kong, April 18, 2020. Fourteen other activists were arrested along with him.China has rejected the criticism, saying the U.S. is interfering in China’s internal affairs.“Hong Kong’s affair is purely China’s domestic affair,” said Geng Shuang, a spokesperson at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Tuesday, a group of Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers said the U.S. “must take a leadership role in addressing Beijing’s threats to Hong Kong’s autonomy.”“Failing to address Beijing’s efforts to erode Hong Kong’s autonomy will undermine the freedom and human rights of its people, its valuable role as a partner to the United States, and its unique role in the international economy,” the bipartisan group said in a letter addressed to Pompeo.Pandemic issuesThe United States and China have also been trading sharp accusations over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.“We still haven’t gained access. The world hasn’t gained access to the WIV, Wuhan Institute of Virology,” said Pompeo, adding that other nations should understand how the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, while questioning the safety of other Chinese labs over risks.“There are multiple labs that are continuing to conduct work, we think, on contagious pathogens inside China today,” the U.S. secretary of state said. “We don’t know if they are operating at a level of security to prevent this from happening again.”Relations between the U.S. and China have deteriorated since the COVID-19 outbreak, which as of Wednesday afternoon EDT had killed more than 226,000 people worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
 
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A departing United Nations official has requested new investigations into claims of continuing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Myanmar, while calling on the global community to help avoid other atrocities.Yanghee Lee, the U.N.’s top human rights envoy to the Southeast Asian country, accused Myanmar’s military Wednesday of “inflicting immense suffering” on ethnic minorities in Rakhine and Chin states.The Myanmar government is battling the Arakan Army, a guerrilla group representing the Buddhist Rakhine minority that is vying for greater autonomy.”While the world is occupied with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Myanmar military continues to escalate its assault in Rakhine state, targeting the civilian population,” Lee said in a statement.A nurse attends to a boy injured by a blast in Buthidaung township, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, Jan. 7, 2020. (Photo provided to VOA by source who requested not to be identified)Lee accused the Myanmar military of defying “the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and human rights.” She said the military’s treatment of civilians “may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Lee is stepping down this month after six years in her post.The Myanmar military launched a “clearance campaign” in August 2017 in northern Rakhine state following attacks by Rohingya insurgent forces, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority, to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Myanmar security forces were accused of committing mass killings and rapes and torching thousands of homes.The U.N.’s highest court instructed the Myanmar government to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya and to provide the global body with progress reports. The International Court of Justice said last year it would rule on charges of genocide against Myanmar, which maintains it acted justifiably.Lee said government artillery and air strikes in recent weeks have killed and injured scores of adults and children and displaced more than 157,000 people.She also criticized the Arakan Army for committing hostile acts “in a manner that has had negative impacts on civilians, including kidnapping local officials and parliamentarians.”But Lee noted the Arakan Army had declared a unilateral cease-fire, citing the need to contain the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.Lee said the violence in Rakhine and Chin states is linked to the government’s failure to hold senior officers accountable, instead meting out nominal punishments to a handful of low-ranking security personnel. 
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In Myanmar, an estimated 350,000 internally displaced persons living in crowded and sometimes unsanitary conditions face the danger of a widespread outbreak of COVID-19.  Access to food, aid and information has become increasingly difficult as travel restrictions and lockdowns increase.  In Kachin state, camps formed since 2011, when fighting resumed between the Myanmar forces and the Kachin Independence Army after a 17-year cease-fire was broken, are feeling the impact. In the Myanmar government-controlled capital of Myitkyina, long-time residents who depend on casual labor earnings say they have more to worry about than the virus itself.  ”We aren’t afraid to get the virus COVID-19 because the most important and dangerous thing for us is having the money needed for our family’s food supply,” says Naw Ja Pee, a Jaw Masat IDP camp resident.   “If we are shut out of food, we will all die,” she adds. The camps surrounding the Kachin capital have been locked down since April 8. Those who return to the camp from China and elsewhere are quarantined for 14 days and their vehicles are sprayed with disinfectants. “The people who come back are classified as a risky group, so we have to find space to quarantine them and take care of them,” explains camp nurse Saw Kyi Na. Food is in short supply and so is information about COVID-19. To help understand the highly contagious virus, a local media group produced a video with a special message for IDPs. Myitkyina News Journal’s Brang Mai and his team chose children from Jaw Masat IDP camp, with the intent of finding out their knowledge about the virus before producing an education video. The final one-minute clip presents seven children from the camp reciting prevention guidelines including wearing a mask, covering a cough and washing hands often.  “The first benefit is we can check the IDP people. Do they have enough information on COVID-19 or not? And the second thing is, people will be more aware,” explains Brang Mai. Social distancing, health care accessSocial distancing is difficult in camps with wall to wall huts. “The camps are really crowded, and all of their rooms are small and so in a small room there are eight to 10 people. They have to sleep in one small room together, so it is difficult for them to follow the social distancing,” Brang Mai adds. Access to healthcare is also a big challenge and camp residents often struggle to get clean water and other essential services. “Many people in Myanmar are completely outside the health system as it exists and that certainly includes the people in these IDP camps  in Kachin state, which is why it is so critical why there should be an effective prevention,”  said Human Rights Watch’s Phil Robertson. Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid to Kachin Independence Organization-controlled territory in Northern Myanmar has been blocked for the last four years but some aid is coming in, through China. “I think that the U.N. team in Myanmar must get really forceful with the government of Myanmar and say ‘look this is life and death, it’s time to end these restrictions and let the people get the assistance in there that needs to be reaching these people,’” says Robertson. Camp backstory
The IDP camps were formed when civilians fled fighting between government forces and ethnic armed groups — a conflict that continues in Arakan, Shan and Karen states.   Quite often, the government soldiers control transportation routes and supplies to the camps. The Myanmar government unveiled a stimulus package in March including a US$70 million loan fund, mainly for Myanmar businesses in government-controlled areas affected by the pandemic. As the country braces for a possible outbreak of the deadly virus, civil society groups are calling for more aid for those in the ethnic areas since they are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.
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Asian markets are trading higher Wednesday as many countries continued with efforts to ease restrictions imposed at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Sydney all enjoyed significant gains by late Wednesday afternoon, while Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index is closed due to a national holiday.  Oil prices are also back on the upswing, with U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude trading at $13.53 per barrel, up 9.6%, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at $21.16, an increase of 3.4%.   Oil markets have been struggling since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, with government imposed quarantines choking off demand and causing a massive glut of supplies. U.S. crude prices plunged last week below $0 per barrel last week for the first time in history.   The latest selloff in U.S. crude came Tuesday after the United States Oil Fund, a popular exchange-traded fund, announced it would sell all of its contracts for June.
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In Myanmar, an estimated 350,000 internally displaced persons living in crowded and sometimes unsanitary conditions face the danger of a widespread outbreak of COVID-19. Special teams are forming in some of the camps to help provide information and some equipment to prevent a disaster as the country comes to grips with the pandemic. Steve Sandford reports from Thailand.
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The head of the Japan Medical Association said Tuesday it will be difficult for the country to host the rescheduled Olympics next year without a coronavirus vaccine available. “I am not saying that Japan should or shouldn’t host the Olympics, but that it would be difficult to do so,” said Yoshitake Yokokura. “Unless an effective vaccine is developed, I expect hosting the Olympics will be difficult.” The pandemic forced organizers to abandon plans to hold the games this July, opting instead to postpone the event that draws thousands of athletes from all over the world. Multiple countries are currently working on developing vaccines, but experts have cautioned the process to test both the safety and effectiveness of vaccine candidates, plus manufacturing doses, could take 12 to 18 months. The coronavirus outbreak has prompted officials to put billions of people under various stay-at-home orders and tell non-essential businesses to close their doors. The result has been increases in unemployment, massive revenue cuts and governments balancing the need to stop the spread of the virus with economic concerns.  Some have enacted financial rescue packages to help put money in people’s pockets and keep businesses afloat. U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock suggested a $90 billion effort to help provide income, food and health aid for the world’s most vulnerable people at a time when experts say the pandemic has not yet reached the poorest parts of the planet. Mark Lowcock, the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs Emergency and Relief Coordinator, address United Nations Security Council with a report on Yemen, Tuesday Oct. 23, 2018 at U.N. headquarters.He said there are 700 million people in 30 to 40 countries that had been receiving some level of humanitarian assistance and will see incomes drop as increased infections force lockdown measures. “What I am suggesting is a lot of the suffering and loss of life can be contained within sums of money which are imaginable,” he said. Lowcock said funding could come from a combination of international institutions, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as one-time boosts in contributions from governments. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged European countries that are easing their lockdowns because of declining numbers of new cases to “find, isolate, test and treat all cases of COVID-19 and trace every contact, to ensure these declining trends continue.”      He told a media briefing in Geneva on Monday that “the pandemic is far from over.” He added that the “WHO continues to be concerned about the increasing trends in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and some Asian countries.”   His comments followed easing of restrictions in Italy, Spain, Germany and elsewhere. France, one of the hardest-hit nations with more than 23,000 COVID-19 deaths, is due to announce its plans to begin easing restrictions on Tuesday.    Health officials in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, said Tuesday there were no new cases and that there were no remaining coronavirus patients in its hospitals for a second consecutive day.   Confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide have surpassed 3 million, and fatalities have exceeded 211,000, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
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As the United States assesses reports on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s health, officials and experts say Washington will continue its sanctions and pressure campaign against Pyongyang. “We continue to call on North Korea to avoid provocations, abide by obligations under U.N. Security Council Resolutions, and return to sustained and substantive negotiations to do its part to achieve complete denuclearization‎,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA on Monday. FILE- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves at parade participants at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, May 16, 2016.While South Korea has refuted numerous reports speculating about Kim’s possible death and insisted there are “no unusual movements” in North Korea, analysts are taking interest in the profile of Kim Yo Jong, Kim’s younger sister who is described as one of Kim’s most trusted advisers. “Ms. Kim, clearly over the last few years, has slowly been groomed for something bigger,” says Harry Kazianis, senior director for Korean Studies at the conservative think-tank Center for the National Interest. Who is Kim Yo Jong?  And why is she seen by some as the most likely successor if Kim Jong Un’s health deteriorates? The supreme leader’s sister was recently promoted as an alternate member of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party’s powerful Central Committee Politburo, continuing her ascent in the country’s leadership hierarchy. Diplomatic sources took note of Kim Yo Jong’s March statement on U.S.-North Korean ties after U.S. President Donald Trump sent a personal letter to Kim Jong Un, seeking to maintain communication and offering cooperation to help the country fight the COVID-19 outbreak. She praised Trump for sending the letter at a time when “big difficulties and challenges lie ahead in the way of developing ties” between the two countries, according to the Associated Press, which quoted North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency. The statement is seen by some as a sign of Kim Yo Jong’s growing role in U.S.-North Korea relations. FILE – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, rides a horse as he visits battle sites at Mount Paektu, Ryanggang, in this undated picture released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Dec. 4, 2019.North Korea says Kim’s grandfather and father, Kim Jong Il, were born at Mount Paektu, a centerpiece of the North’s idolization and propaganda campaign to highlight the allegedly sacred bloodline of the ruling Kim family. “Ms. Kim is clearly moving up the ranks over the last few years – adding more and more top-tier positions to her DPRK leadership resume, something needed if she was to ever take the reins of power,” added Center for National Interest’s Kazianis. But “regardless of who assumes power, there are no indications that a successor would pursue different domestic or foreign policies,” says Bruce Klingner, with the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation. “The regime has long emphasized the centrality of nuclear weapons to its national security, and its resistance to negotiating them away,” says the Heritage senior fellow. “A successor may be more deft in reaching out to foreign countries, as Kim Jong Un was, but the underlying objectives and policies would remain constant.” FILE – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, North Korea’s nominal head of state Kim Yong Nam, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea, February  9, 2018.Kim Yo Jong has held numerous high-ranking positions, including first vice director of the Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee, and the first vice director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department. She garnered international attention when photographed sitting near U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, during the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She is the first member of the ruling Kim family to visit South Korea since the division of Korea at the end of World War II.  
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Chinese officials said there are no coronavirus patients in hospitals across Hubei province, whose capital, Wuhan, was the epicenter of the global pandemic. Many residents and netizens from elsewhere, however, remain skeptical of the government’s claim about Wuhan.“Given the problem of information asymmetry we face, my gut feeling tells me that this zero-patient report is merely a political show after the authorities announced earlier that no treatment was necessary for recovered patients testing positive,” a Wuhan resident told VOA on Monday via a social messaging app.The resident asked to be identified only as “Mr. Yang” for safety reasons.A political show?China puts on the political show because “the harm from shutting down the factories has caused a worse impact on the ruling regime than that from the virus itself,” Yang added.Yang was referring to comments made by Jian Yahui, an official with China’s National Health Commission.Jian on Friday said that the number of patients in Wuhan then stood at 47, more than 30 of whom had shown no symptoms but continued to test positive in nucleic acid tests.These patients no longer need treatment, Jian said, according to a report in China’s state-run Global Times newspaper.The report then cited Yang Zhanqiu, deputy director of the Pathogen Biology Department at the Wuhan University, saying that these patients wouldn’t be allowed to leave the hospital until two successive negative test results are obtained – a national discharge standard to ease public concerns. But on Monday, health authorities in Wuhan and Hubei both claimed to have zero coronavirus patients.Medical personnel in protective suits wave hands to a patient who is discharged from the Leishenshan Hospital after recovering from the novel coronavirus, in Wuhan in Hubei province, China, March 1, 2020. (Credit: China Daily)Official statistics showed that, as of Sunday, the province had a total of 68,128 patients, 4,512 of whom died from the disease while the remaining patients were discharged. Among them were 3,869 from Wuhan who succumbed to the infection. The city claimed to have zero severe patients on Friday and that the last of its 46,464 patients left the hospital on Saturday.That triggered public concerns about those recovered patients who continued to test positive and whether they were infectious.On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging site, the majority of netizens heralded both the city’s achievements in treating COVID-19 patients and China’s claim of success in combating the virus.Wuhan residents skepticalWhile some Wuhan residents have voiced skepticism, others have raised concerns about whether asymptomatic patients and recovered patients who test positive can spread the virus.One user from Tibet wrote, “Please don’t play word game” and another from Shanghai said, “So soon?… Please reconfirm these figures. Don’t kick these patients out of the hospital just to show how good we are.”One user from Wuhan said that, in his neighborhood, one recovered patient tested positive again recently while another said that he was ordered to work from home after two people from his neighborhood tested positive on Sunday.Some netizens outside of Wuhan also voiced doubts.“Am I the only one who feels there is a coverup?” one user wrote. Another said, “There’s no patient if the government says so. The disease is preventable and controllable if the government said there is no human-to-human transmission.”Reports on the ground also ran contrary to the official figures.A patient’s daughter surnamed Ho told U.S.-based The Epoch Times on Sunday that her family has been denied access to her ailing father, who remains in the hospital’s intensive care unit. She said that the family was told about her father’s negative test results although no written test results were given to the family. Her father remains in an isolation ward for pneumonia-like symptoms. She also complained about the huge medical bill the hospital has asked the family to pay.A worker in protective suit disinfects the Wuhan No. 7 Hospital, once a designated hospital for the COVID-19 patients, to prepare it for the resumption of its normal service in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, March 19, 2020.Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan is from Shanghai and has been reporting from Wuhan since February 1.  Zhang says she suspects the city’s claim to have zero hospitalized coronavirus patients is false.“I came cross a patient, who has tested negative nine times. But he keeps having a fever and his lungs continue to suffer from an inflammatory condition, according to his CT scan. What do you say about this? This zero-patient claim must be fake,” she said.Police coercionMeanwhile, a U.S.-based health rights campaigner says seven families who had loved ones die of COVID-19 had planned to file a lawsuit against the Wuhan government over its handling of the health crisis; but, Yang Zhanqing says two of the families called off their decision to pursue the legal action after local police’s repeated harassment and coercion.Yang Zhanqing is a co-founder of China’s Chang Sha Funeng non-profit organization. Yang has been working with the Wuhan families since early March, attempting to file a class action lawsuit against the local government.“Most victims have had no experience in upholding their [health] rights. They were not prepared or aware that the authorities would resort to gangster-like and cruel tactics to pressure them into giving up. So, when that happened, they got terribly frightened and just gave up like that in a very short span of time,” Yang, who currently lives in the United States, told VOA over the phone.The campaigner pledged to continue his fight for the remaining five families, which will now each file a lawsuit against the Wuhan government since a class action lawsuit in China requires at least a group of nine plaintiffs.Justice will prevail only when the rights of these families are upheld with compensation made so the city government is held accountable, Yang said. 
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More than a million Australians have downloaded a coronavirus contact tracing app within hours of it being released by the government.  Officials have said the technology would help Australia get back to normal and help lift restrictions, but it has been criticized by civil liberties groups.  Australia has managed to control its coronavirus outbreak, but officials worry about the risk of another flareup.  There are 6,713 confirmed Covid-19 infections in Australia.  83 people have died.  The Australian government says the voluntary app will help to save lives.  It is designed to enable health officials to trace people potentially exposed to COVID-19.  Smartphone users who download the app will be notified if they have had contact with another user who has tested positive for coronavirus.  It uses Bluetooth signals to log when people have been close to one another.   Officials believe it could help to trace undiagnosed COVID-19 infections.  They have insisted the data will only be used by state health authorities.   
 
“No Australian should have any concerns about downloading this app.  It is only for one purpose; to help contact tracing if someone becomes positive,” says Australia’s chief medical officer Brendan Murphy. “I think Australians will rise to the challenge because they have risen to the challenge of distancing, they have risen to the challenge of testing.” The CovidSafe app is based on software used in Singapore.  But civil liberties campaigners say it is an invasion of privacy.   Pauline Wright from the Law Council of Australia says data protection safeguards are needed. “If there are problems then people need to have the assurance that it will be overseen by an independent authority,”  she said.
 
The government wants at least 40% of Australians — roughly 10 million people — to sign up to make the Covid-19 digital tracking measure effective.   
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