Several hundred people in New Zealand were evacuated from their homes Monday, with some recounting dramatic helicopter rescues as heavy rain caused widespread flooding in the Canterbury region. Authorities declared a state of emergency after some places received as much as 40 centimeters (16 inches) of rain over the weekend and into Monday. Forecasters warned of possible heavy rain through Monday evening before conditions improve. The military helped evacuate more than 50 people, including several overnight in an NH90 military helicopter. One man was clinging to a tree near the town of Darfield when he jumped into floodwaters and tried to swim to safety but was swept away, the military said.  Helicopter crews scoured the water for 30 minutes before finding the man and plucking him to safety. The military helicopter also rescued an elderly couple from the roof of their car. A member of the New Zealand Defense Force rescues a dog from floods as they assist a family with their evacuation near Ashburton in New Zealand’s South Island, Sunday May 30, 2021.”Seeing the community overnight pull together and support the displaced residents who were evacuated from their homes has been heartening,” said Captain Jake Faber, Army liaison officer. Another man was rescued by a civilian helicopter pilot Sunday after he was swept from his farm as he tried to move his stock to safety.  Paul Adams told the news organization Stuff that he thinks he got hit by a wall of water he didn’t see coming. He was swept down the raging Ashburton River before managing to drag himself onto a fence and then into a tree. Another farmer spotted his headlamp and organized a rescue mission. “The rescuers are fantastic,” Adams told Stuff, adding that he was now back on his farm and “good as gold.” He said that so far, he’d found only about 100 of his herd of 250 animals alive. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was visiting New Zealand, told reporters that he was thinking of those caught up in the floods. “Australia is no stranger to floods,” Morrison said. “Or fires, or cyclones, or, indeed, even mouse plagues. We have, both countries, endured a large amount of challenge over the course, particularly, of these last few years.” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern planned to travel to Christchurch later Monday to be briefed on the situation firsthand. 
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Britain’s intelligence agencies — along with other Western European security services — are assisting a new American investigation to try to establish the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to officials on both sides of the Atlantic.  The central focus of the investigation is on the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China as suspicions mount that the novel bat-derived virus roiling the world, and which has led to at least four million deaths, may have leaked from its lab, a claim Beijing has furiously denied.British officials briefed London newspapers Sunday that the thesis the virus escaped from the lab is “plausible” and “feasible,” a turnaround from British intelligence’s skepticism for most of the past 18 months of the possibility that the pandemic may have been triggered by a lab leak. Other Western intelligence agencies were also skeptical last year of the leak theory, seeing it as being only a remote possibility.But last week, U.S. President Joe Biden instructed American intelligence agencies to investigate the leak theory and report back within three months. Biden’s order came after U.S. intelligence discovered more details about three researchers at the Wuhan lab who fell ill in November 2019, several weeks before the first identified case of the outbreak — and more than a month before China informed the World Health Organization of “cases of pneumonia” of an “unknown cause” had been detected in Wuhan.The researchers were hospitalized with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but also with common seasonal respiratory illnesses, according to a U.S. intelligence report first publicly disclosed by The Wall Street Journal.The new details have added to circumstantial evidence supporting the theory that the virus may have spread to humans after a leak from the Wuhan lab, say Western officials.FILE – An aerial view shows the P4 laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China, April 17, 2020.A WHO-led team report earlier this year ruled the lab-leak theory “extremely unlikely,” and favored the prevailing theory that the coronavirus most likely originated in a Wuhan wet market, jumping from an animal, likely a bat or pangolin, to humans. But the WHO inquiry has come under mounting criticism from some prominent Western scientists — as well as Western governments, who say the Chinese authorities blocked the WHO team during a four-week visit to Wuhan in January.
Eighteen of the world’s top epidemiologists and geneticists wrote a letter to the journal Science calling for an independent inquiry into the lab leak theory.British intelligence officials confirmed to Britain’s Sunday Telegraph that British security agencies are cooperating with the new American probe. “We are contributing what intelligence we have on Wuhan, as well as offering to help the American to corroborate and analyze any intelligence they have that we can assist with,” an official was quoted as saying.They added: “What is required to establish the truth behind the coronavirus outbreak is well-sourced intelligence rather than informed analysis, and that is difficult to come by.”Intelligence officials on both sides of the Atlantic say the probe will include using artificial intelligence systems to help data mine everything from Chinese social media comments to intercepted phone and electronic communications in China. Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, also known as GCHQ, the eavesdropping spy agency and the country’s largest intelligence service, will be key in Britain’s collaboration with the U.S., British officials told VOA.With few on-the-ground intelligence sources in China, Western intelligence agencies are believed to be trawling the so-called “dark web” to unearth information posted and shared there anonymously by Chinese scientists and officials secretly critical of the Communist government.FILE – A technician is seen inside the the P4 laboratory of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China, Feb. 23, 2017.British lawmakers are welcoming the redoubled effort to identify the origins of the pandemic. “The silence coming from Wuhan is troubling. We need to open the crypt and to see what happened, to be able to protect ourselves in the future,” Tom Tugendhat, chair of the House of Commons’ foreign affairs committee said on Sunday.  China’s authorities have denied there was any leak from the Wuhan lab, which conducts research on viruses and receives some funding from the U.S. government. Last year, Chinese propagandists blamed the coronavirus outbreak on a U.S. Army sports delegation which visited Wuhan and touted several conspiracy theories subsequently discredited by prominent virologists and epidemiologists.Last week, China’s Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party daily tabloid newspaper, condemned Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, for saying he supported investigating multiple theories of the virus’ origins, including probing whether it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.Fauci said it was important to increase efforts to unearth why, where and how the pandemic began because knowing the origin could help prevent future outbreaks of coronaviruses. “I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened,” he said.The Global Times accused Fauci of attempting “to hype the old and groundless narrative that the virus was leaked from a lab in Wuhan.” It said the leak theory “is a blatant lie, a conspiracy created by U.S. intelligence agencies and media outlets to slander China, and China has denied it.”
 
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Hong Kong police have arrested an elderly democracy activist as she made a solo demonstration over China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown in a vivid illustration of the zero protest tolerance now wielded by authorities in the financial hub. Alexandra Wong, 65, was detained on Sunday on suspicion of taking part in an unlawful assembly as she walked towards Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong.   Wong — known locally as “Grandma Wong” — was a regular fixture of the huge democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019.   She could often be seen waving a Union Jack flag, a symbol of her dissatisfaction with Beijing’s rule since the city was handed to China by former colonial power Britain in 1997.   Protest is now all but outlawed in Hong Kong. Authorities have used both the threat of the coronavirus and security concerns to ban demonstrations. A vigil planned for this Friday — the 32nd anniversary of Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on democracy protests in Tiananmen Square — has been denied permission for the second year in a row. Authorities have cited the coronavirus, although Hong Kong is currently celebrating no local transmission cases of unknown origin for the last month. Activists had also sought permission for a small Tiananmen-themed march on Sunday to the Liaison Office, which represents the central government in the city, but it was also denied permission. Wong turned up anyway that afternoon holding as sign that read “32, June 4, Tiananmen’s lament” and a yellow umbrella — the latter a symbol of Hong Kong’s democracy movement. The South China Morning Post said the pensioner started chanting slogans in a park before heading towards the Liaison Office by herself, while being followed and filmed by police. She was stopped twice. “I’m only by myself, just an old lady here. Why stop me?” the Post quoted Wong as telling officers. Soon afterwards she was arrested. Police confirmed a 65-year-old woman surnamed Wong had been arrested for “knowingly participating in an unauthorized assembly and attempting to incite others to join an unauthorized assembly.” Hong Kong’s democracy movement has been crushed by a broad crackdown on dissent over the last year, including the imposition of a sweeping security law that criminalizes much dissent.   In the middle of the 2019 protests Wong disappeared for more than a year.    She resurfaced saying she had been detained by mainland authorities during a trip to Shenzhen, a neighboring city where she lived at the time.   
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North Korea’s state media on Monday criticized the recent termination of a pact between the United States and South Korea that capped the development of South Korea’s ballistic missiles, calling it a sign of Washington’s “shameful double-dealing.”South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced the abolishment of the joint missile guidelines that had limited the country’s development of ballistic missiles to a range of 800 kilometers (500 miles) after his first summit with U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this month.North Korea’s official KCNA news agency carried an article by Kim Myong Chol, who it described as an “international affairs critic,” to accuse the United States of applying a double standard as it sought to ban Pyongyang from developing ballistic missiles.The United States is “engrossed in confrontation despite its lip-service to dialog,” Kim said. “The termination step is a stark reminder of the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK and its shameful double-dealing.”The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is North Korea’s official name.North Korea’s target is the United States, not South Korea’s military, and it will counter the states on “the principle of strength for strength,” Kim said.Kim also criticized Moon for welcoming the termination of the guidelines, calling it “disgusting, indecent.””Now that the U.S. and the South Korean authorities made clear their ambition of aggression, they are left with no reasons whatsoever to fault the DPRK bolstering its capabilities for self-defense,” Kim added. 
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The Ukrainian ambassador to Thailand collapsed and died on Sunday while on a resort island with his family, authorities said.Andrii Beshta, 44, was declared dead on Lipe Island in southern Satun province, Gov. Ekkarat Leesen told The Associated Press.Police quoted his teenage son, who was staying in the same hotel room, as saying his father vomited and fainted early Sunday. He said he was feeling fine before. Police said they suspect he may have suffered a heart failure.Leesen said the body was sent to the police hospital for an autopsy.Beshta had assumed the post of ambassador in January 2016. He is survived by his wife, daughter and two sons, according to a bio on the embassy’s website.
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Breathless, fevered and without the extra oxygen that could help keep them alive, the new coronavirus patients at a hospital near Myanmar’s border with India highlight the threat to a health system near collapse since February’s coup.To help her tend the seven COVID-19 patients at Cikha hospital, day and night, chief nurse Lun Za En has a lab technician and a pharmacist’s assistant.Mostly, they offer kind words and acetaminophen.”We don’t have enough oxygen, enough medical equipment, enough electricity, enough doctors or enough ambulances,” Lun Za En, 45, told Reuters from the town of just more than 10,000. “We are operating with three staff instead of 11.”Myanmar’s anti-COVID campaign foundered along with the rest of the health system after the military seized power on Feb. 1 and overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose government had stepped up testing, quarantine and treatment.Services at public hospitals collapsed after many doctors and nurses joined strikes in a Civil Disobedience Movement at the forefront of the opposition to military rule — and sometimes on the front line of the protests that have been bloodily suppressed.Thirteen medics have been killed, according to World Health Organization data that shows 179 attacks on health workers, facilities and transportation, nearly half of all such attacks recorded worldwide this year, said WHO Myanmar representative Stephan Paul Jost.About 150 health workers have been arrested. Hundreds more doctors and nurses are wanted on incitement charges.Neither a junta spokesman nor the health ministry responded to requests for comment. The junta, which initially made fighting the pandemic one of its priorities, has repeatedly urged medics to return to work. Few have responded.Testing collapsedA worker at one COVID-19 quarantine center in Myanmar’s commercial capital, Yangon, said all the specialist health workers there had joined the Civil Disobedience Movement.”Then again, we don’t receive new patients any more as COVID test centers don’t have staff to test,” said the worker, who declined to give his name for fear of retribution.In the week before the coup, COVID-19 tests nationally averaged more than 17,000 a day. That had fallen below 1,200 a day in the seven days through Wednesday.Myanmar has reported more than 3,200 COVID-19 deaths from more than 140,000 cases, although the slump in testing has raised doubts over data that shows new cases and deaths have largely plateaued since the coup.Now, a health system in crisis is raising concerns about the likely impact of the variants that are sweeping through India, Thailand and other neighbors.Patients with COVID-19 symptoms started showing up at Cikha hospital in mid-May. It is only 6 kilometers from India, and health workers fear the illness could be the highly infectious B.1.617.2 strain, though they lack the means to test for it.”It’s very concerning that COVID-19 testing, treatment and vaccinations are extremely limited in Myanmar as more lives are at risk with new, more dangerous variants spreading,” said Luis Sfeir-Younis, Myanmar COVID-19 operations manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.Surge of casesTwenty-four cases have been identified in Cikha, said Za En, the nurse. Seven were so serious they needed hospitalization.Stay-at-home orders have now been declared in parts of Chin state, where Cikha is located, and neighboring Sagaing region.The WHO said it was trying to reach authorities and other groups in the area who could provide help, while recognizing the difficulties in a health system that was precipitously reversing years of impressive gains.”It is not clear how this will be resolved, unless there is a resolution at the political level addressing the political conflict,” Jost said.Za En said her hospital was doing the best it could with nebulizers — machines that turn liquid to mist — to relieve breathlessness. Some patients have oxygen concentrators, but they only work for the two hours a day that the town gets electricity.Refusing to abandon the sick, Za En said she decided not to join the strikes.”The junta will not take care of our patients,” she said.Across Myanmar, some striking doctors have set up underground clinics to help patients. When Myanmar Red Cross volunteers established three clinics in Yangon neighborhoods, they quickly had dozens of patients.At best, such options can provide basic care.”Eighty percent of the hospitals are public health hospitals,” said Marjan Besuijen, head of mission for the Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) aid group. “As MSF or others we can’t step in, it’s too big.”Although military hospitals have been opened to the public, many people fear them or refuse to go on principle, including for coronavirus vaccinations in a campaign the ousted government had launched days before the coup.”I am very worried that these new infections will spread all over the country,” Za En said. “If the infection spreads to the crowded cities, it could be uncontrollable.”
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Myanmar’s military coup that took place nearly four months ago has sparked outrage nationwide, with thousands of pro-democracy protesters taking to the streets and going on strike in resistance.But in retaliation, armed forces have violently cracked down on demonstrators, leaving hundreds dead and thousands detained.Insein Prison is one of Myanmar’s most notorious jails,, with a history of inhumane conditions and treatment. Since the coup, hundreds of political prisoners are being held there, with some tortured during interrogation at the hands of authorities, according to released prisoners.Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi recently spent over a month at Insein after being arrested by the junta, who first claimed he violated immigration law and then accused him of an illegal video purchase.He spent his time in an isolated cell at Insein, in what he described as a “VIP building,” among a handful of political prisoners. More than 100 other prisoners, however, were crammed into a single room where it was difficult to move.Knife or gun?“Most of the political prisoners were tortured in the military compound, [the] military institute,” where fellow inmates suffered abuse while blindfolded throughout intake interrogations, said Kitazumi. “They did not do that inside Insein Prison.“One man was asked to choose: knife or a gun?” Kitazumi said. “He chooses a gun. And then the interrogator points to his head very close and makes the interrogation.”Released unharmed and flown back to Tokyo earlier this month, Kitazumi, who credits nationality for his freedom, also said prisoners were forced to eat from the concrete floor with hands cuffed behind their backs.Yuki Kitazumi, a Japanese freelance journalist detained in Myanmar in mid-April and accused of spreading fake news criticizing the military coup, gestures to speak to reporters as he arrives at Narita International Airport, Japan, May 14, 2021.”Sometimes [they were] hit by a stick when they denied a question,” he said. “They continued for a very long time — for two days or three days.”Thousands in custodyAccording to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), at least 4,000 pro-democracy activists remain detained following the coup.Ko Bo Kyi, an AAPP founder, told VOA that at least 400 political prisoners were being held at Insein, which he described as overcrowded, holding at least 10,000 inmates. But Kyaw Htun Oo, deputy director of Myanmar’s Prison Department, denied allegations of overcrowding, citing the prison’s COVID-19-free status as evidence.VOA was not able to independently verify whether the prison community was free of COVID-19 cases.When VOA asked how many prisoners were being held, the security director said he didn’t have permission to answer, but that the prison has a 7,000-inmate capacity, and that all prisoners are treated the same and no abuse takes place.But abuses can occur, “maybe in the interrogation center,” Htun Oo voluntarily allowed.Interrogation-stage abuseA Myanmar lawyer who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation told VOA abuse appears to occur immediately following the arrests, most of which are carried out under section 505(a) of the penal code, which prohibits disruption of government operations or making statements that could arouse fear.”When they do interrogation, we heard they do torture,” he told VOA, explaining that things typically improve for inmates once they are moved to the prison itself.”It is fine in the prisons,” he said. “I know it because my son is also detained now.”Zay Yar Lwin, center left, and Paing Pyo Min, center right in white, members of a theatrical troupe sentenced to prison in 2019 for gibes about the military, are pictured after their release from Insein Prison in Yangon, Myanmar, April 17, 2021.Zay Yar Lwin, an activist and former president of the Yangon University of Economics student union, was incarcerated at Insein in 2019 and released in April. He said the prison infrastructure has improved but that prisoner treatment depends on the day-to-day mood of prison officers.While in jail, he told VOA, he met Australian Sean Turnell, a former economic policy adviser to Myanmar’s ousted democratic government and the first foreign national to be arrested amid the coup.Turnell, who remains behind bars, faced a grueling intake procedure.“During the interrogation, he stayed in the room covered with aluminum. They showed Sean a big light for 24 hours, and asked him questions for two weeks,” said Yar Lwin, referring to an interrogation technique in which harsh lights are aimed directly into the detainee’s eyes.But Yar Lwin said the Australian has since been allowed to watch television news and read books sent from his family.US journalistIn recent days, authorities detained American journalist Danny Fenster, who had been working for Frontier Myanmar magazine. The U.S State Department has demanded his release.Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar gained independence in 1948 from Britain, but was mostly under military rule until 2011, when the military junta was dissolved, making way for a military-sanctioned transitional government that ushered in numerous popular democratic reforms.The military contested the results of last November’s general elections, making unsubstantiated claims of fraud. On February 1, the Myanmar military removed the National League for Democracy government, detaining leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.The British built Insein Prison in 1887 and it has been the subject of controversy since the military seized power following a popular uprising in 1988. There were reports at the time that prisoners faced unsanitary conditions and torture, sometimes prompting hunger strikes. Suu Kyi was held there three times.
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The mother of a journalist detained in Myanmar says she and the family “just want him here” in Michigan.“It was a total visceral reaction, gut, visceral, numbing, nauseating, tearful, helpless feeling,” Rose Fenster said, describing how she felt when learning about the detention of her son Danny Fenster.The 37-year-old managing editor of Frontier Myanmar was detained at Yangon International Airport on Monday as he was preparing to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, en route to the Detroit area to see his family.“It’s important we get this resolved as quickly as possible. We’re on Day 5, so time is crucial. We want him out of there,” Bryan Fenster, Danny’s older brother, said during an interview Friday at their parents’ home in Huntington Woods, Michigan.Earlier in the day, the U.S. State Department said it was deeply concerned about the detention of Danny Fenster and another American citizen who also has been working as a journalist in Myanmar. The State Department is pressing that country’s military government for their immediate release.It said in a statement that it will keep seeking the release of Fenster and Nathan Maung “until they are allowed to return home safely to their families.”Frontier Myanmar is a news and business magazine that is published in English and Burmese and also online.Human rights organizations and groups promoting freedom of expression have been calling for the release of both men, as well as all other journalists being held by Myanmar’s military government.Michigan Rep. Andy Levin said he has been in close contact with the State Department and the Fenster family, whom he represents in Congress.“This is about freeing an American citizen who has been unjustly detained,” Levin said. “And we’re all rowing in the same direction here.”Bryan Fenster said his brother has been taken to Insein Prison in Yangon, which over decades has housed thousands of political prisoners, including many from the current movement protesting military rule.Anti-coup protesters flash the three-finger salute during a demonstration against the military takeover, in Yangon, Myanmar, May 24, 2021.“We’ve been hearing terrible things about the conditions there,” Bryan Fenster said.Maung and Myanmar national Hanthar Nyein, co-founders of the Myanmar news website Kamayut Media, were arrested on March 9, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, citing accounts in Myanmar media. The group said it had reports that Maung, the website’s editor-in-chief, and Hanthar, a news producer, had been physically mistreated by guards in their first few weeks at Insein Prison.The State Department statement said consular officers from the U.S. Embassy in Yangon had paid a virtual visit to Maung on Monday but so far have not been granted access to Fenster. It said it urged the authorities “to grant consular access, as required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, without delay, and to ensure proper treatment of both Nathan and Daniel while they remain detained.”Two other foreign journalists have been arrested by the military junta that took power in February after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Freelancers Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan have since been deported.“The ongoing persecution, intimidation, harassment and violence faced by journalists in Myanmar constitutes a clear attempt by the military authorities to suppress peaceful dissent and obscure violations committed by security forces in the wake of the 1 February coup,” the human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement.“The nationwide crackdown has resulted in widespread denial of the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.”It said that according to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 88 journalists have been arrested since the army’s takeover, with more than half still in detention, and 33 in hiding.According to the Assistance Association, which has kept a detailed tally of arrests and deaths since the military takeover, more than 4,300 people are in detention, including 104 who have already been sentenced.Reporters Without Borders and PEN International are among other groups calling for the release of the journalists.“As a mom, I just want him here,” Rose Fenster said. “And just, I love him, love him, love him.” 
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Melbourne went back under lockdown on Friday, as Australian health authorities said a cluster of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases had increased to 39. Health officials have ordered residents to stay home for seven days to prevent the infection from spreading and buy time to investigate how the virus was transmitted from a man being quarantined at a hotel. The outbreak has been traced to an overseas traveler who was found to be infected with an Indian variant of the coronavirus. The acting premier of Australia’s southern state of Victoria, James Merlino, told reporters in Melbourne that the new outbreak is the result of “a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern, which is running faster than we have ever recorded.”  New COVID-19 Outbreak Sends Australia’s Victoria State into 4th Lockdown Acting state Premier tells reporters new outbreak is due to ‘highly infectious strain’ of virus, which ‘is running faster than we have ever recorded’ During the lockdown, residents will be allowed to leave their homes only for essential work, school, shopping, caregiving, exercise and medical reasons, including receiving their scheduled coronavirus vaccinations. The new lockdown is the fourth one imposed on Victoria state since the start of the pandemic. The most severe period occurred in mid-2020 and lasted more than three months as Victoria was in the grip of a wave of COVID-19 infections that killed more than 800 people.Merlino had already imposed a new set of restrictions for Australia’s second-most populous state, including limiting the size of public gatherings and making mask wearing mandatory in restaurants, hotels and other indoor venues until June 4.Vaccine for ICEThe American Civil Liberties Union requested Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “provide immediate vaccine access to the more than 22,100 people in ICE custody.””Over the course of the pandemic, ICE detention facilities have been some of the worst hotspots for the spread of COVID-19, with positivity rates five times greater than prisons and 20 times greater than the general U.S. population,” said the ACLU’s Eunice Cho. The ACLU also said the COVID-19 death toll was actually higher than ICE reported because many of the infected people died after being released from the hospital.Also in the U.S., Facebook said it will no longer remove statements that COVID-19 is created by humans or manufactured “in light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts.”Since the beginning of the pandemic outbreak, Facebook has changed its policy several times on what is allowed on the topic and was not. Another claim banned for being discussed on the platform was the notion that vaccines were not effective or that they were toxic.In other developments, the COVAX initiative to ensure vaccinations for vulnerable people called on world leaders Thursday to help deliver 2 billion doses of vaccines globally this year, as it faces a shortage of 190 million doses by the end of June.COVAX also said it needed global help to make 1.8 billion doses available to 92 lower-income economies by early 2022.”We are seeing the traumatic effects of the terrible surge of COVID-19 in South Asia — a surge which has also severely impacted global vaccine supplies,” COVAX said in a statement.New vaccine late-stage clinical trialTwo European pharmaceutical giants, France’s Sanofi and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline, announced Thursday that they are beginning a late-stage clinical trial of their experimental recombinant COVID-19 vaccine after reporting positive results from a smaller-scale trial.The expanded trial will involve more than 35,000 adults in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United States. The drugmakers will test the efficacy of the new vaccine through a two-stage approach. The first stage will be tested on the original version of the coronavirus, while the second stage will target the B.1.351 variant that was first detected in South Africa. The Sanofi-GSK vaccine will also be tested in the coming weeks to determine if it can be used as a booster shot for a previous inoculation, regardless of the vaccine the recipient had initially received.An official with Sanofi says the vaccine could be granted authorization for use in the last quarter of this year if the Stage 3 trials are successful.
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Hong Kong media tycoon and outspoken pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was sentenced to more jail time Friday over his role in an anti-government protest in 2019, as authorities step up a crackdown on dissent in the city.Lai and nine others were charged with incitement to take part in an unauthorized assembly when they walked down a road with thousands of residents on Oct. 1, 2019, to protest dwindling political freedoms in Hong Kong.Lai, 73, was sentenced to 14 months in prison. He is currently serving a separate 14-month jail term for other convictions earlier this year also related to unauthorized rallies in 2019, when hundreds of thousands repeatedly took to the streets in the biggest challenge to Beijing since the city was handed from British to Chinese control in 1997.Beijing promised that the territory could retain its freedoms not found on the mainland for 50 years.With the two sentences combined, Lai will serve a total of 20 months behind bars. He is the founder of The Apple Daily, a feisty pro-democracy tabloid.Lai is also being investigated under the city’s sweeping national security law, imposed last year, for colluding with foreign powers to intervene in the Hong Kong affairs.Over the past year, Beijing has clamped down on civil liberties in response to protests. Hong Kong authorities have arrested and charged most of the city’s pro-democracy advocates, including Joshua Wong, a student leader during 2014 protests. Scores of others have fled abroad.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement called on Hong Kong authorities to drop charges filed against people “merely for standing for election or for expressing dissenting views.”On Thursday, the Hong Kong legislature, which is dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers, passed a bill reducing the number of directly elected seats and increasing the number of legislators appointed by a largely pro-Beijing committee. The law also ensures that only “patriots” can run for public posts.
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Actor and professional wrestler John Cena has apologized to fans in China after he called Taiwan a country in a promotional interview for his upcoming film and became the latest celebrity to face the fury of Chinese nationalists.
In a short video posted Tuesday on Chinese social media site Weibo, Cena did not refer to Taiwan or go into much detail about the incident, which occurred earlier this month when he was doing a promotion for “Fast & Furious 9” with Taiwanese media.
“In one interview, I made a mistake,” he said in heavily accented Mandarin Chinese. “I need to say now that this is very, very, very, very, very important. I love and respect China and the Chinese people. I’m very, very sorry. As for my mistake, I really apologize for it.”FILE – Actor John Cena attends the Road to “Fast & Furious 9” Concert at Maurice A. Ferre Park in Miami Beach, Fla.In his interview with TVBS, a Taiwanese cable channel, Cena was also speaking in Mandarin when he said Taiwan would be the first “country” to be able to see the film. That led to an uproar in China, which considers the self-governing democracy its own territory to be taken back by force if necessary.
It was unclear if Cena’s apology worked, as many comments on Chinese social media in response to his video were negative. Likewise, Cena was also facing scorn back in the United States, where Sen. Tom Cotton called the apology “pathetic” and others lashed out at him on social media as a “coward.”
Global companies and celebrities seeking to maintain access to the lucrative Chinese market have to tread a fine line on many issues as online nationalistic outrage can spark boycotts.  
China has increasingly pressured foreign firms over their statements on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, the South China Sea and other issues Beijing considers sensitive.  
Airlines and other multinational companies have been pushed to refer to Taiwan as a part of China on their websites or risk damage to their business in China.  
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV cut ties with the NBA for a year in response to a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, even though the post was quickly deleted.  
News about Chloe Zhao, a Chinese director, winning an Oscar was censored in April after old interviews surfaced where she said that she grew up in a place where there were “lies” everywhere.
Brands including Swedish retailer H&M, Adidas and Nike have been targeted for consumer boycotts after state media criticized them for expressing concern about reports of forced labor in China’s western region of Xinjiang.
Meanwhile, “Fast & Furious 9” — the latest in the Hollywood franchise — appeared to be doing well in China despite the uproar. The film has taken in $155 million at the box office in China since it opened on May 21, according to local media reports.
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Australia is urging China to apply “basic international standards of justice” to the case of a Chinese-born Australian writer on trial in Beijing for espionage.After more than two years in detention, Australian Yang Hengjun will be tried Thursday for espionage in a closed court in China.Yang has been held in custody since January 2019 after flying into the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou for the Lunar New Year. He was placed under investigation for allegedly harming China’s national security, but was later charged with spying, although officials have given no specific details about his alleged crimes.Yang is a former Chinese diplomat but became an Australian citizen and was based in Sydney. During his incarceration in China, the Australian government said the writer had been held in “harsh conditions.”Yang has denied any wrongdoing.Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said Australia is hoping for a fair hearing but has not been given any explanation or evidence by Beijing for the charges.“I very much hope that we have a transparent and open process,” she said. “We are not interfering in China’s legal system. The concerns that we have raised are legitimate ones, but we do expect those basic international standards of justice to be met.”Yang’s family said they were “nervous and worried” about the trial because of recent diplomatic tensions between the two nations.There have been disputes over human rights, Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea and the suppression of democracy protests in Hong Kong. Australia’s call for a global inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus, which was first detected in China, also aggravated Beijing, which, in apparent retaliation, has imposed a range of economic sanctions on Australian exports.Chinese officials have, in the past, accused Australia of “anti-China hysteria.”In a letter written in prison, Yang suggested his prosecution was “revenge” by China for his outspoken online commentary about Chinese politics.Media reports have previously suggested that if convicted he could face years in prison or the death penalty. 
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