Biden orders to redouble efforts to look into origins of COVID-19
U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he has asked the intelligence community to redouble its efforts to investigate the origins of the novel coronavirus and report back to him in 90 days.
The move came amid renewed attention to a theory that the virus, first detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 before spreading throughout the world, may have accidentally leaked from a laboratory in the central Chinese city.
Biden said he tasked the intelligence community in March with preparing a report on its most up-to-date analysis of the origins of the COVID-19 disease, including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident.
China receives no report of harm after rocket re-enters atmosphere
China said Monday there has been no report of harm on the ground after the country s large rocket re-entered Earth s atmosphere and its debris fell into the Indian Ocean near the Maldives the previous day. China has been closely tracking its trajectory and issued statements on the re-entry situation in advance, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters. There was no need for some media to make exaggeration and create panic.
The Long March-5B Y2 rocket, which carried the core module of China s first space station into orbit, had blasted off from the southern island province of Hainan on April 29. The core stage of the rocket is roughly 30 meters long.
China brushes aside concern over harm triggered by rocket debris
China on Friday brushed aside concern that debris from its large rocket that is likely to fall back to Earth this weekend would hurt people, stressing most of it will be burned in the atmosphere.
Latest estimates have shown the Long March-5B Y2 rocket, which carried the core module of China s first space station to orbit late last month, is expected to come down somewhere between Saturday and Sunday, the United States said.
The Long March-5B Y2 rocket carrying the core module of China s space station, Tianhe, blasts off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on April 29, 2021 in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China. (VCG/Getty/Kyodo)
Japan s Motegi voices grave concerns over China at G-7 meeting
May 5, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)
Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven countries sit for talks on May 4, 2021, in London. (Pool/Getty/Kyodo) LONDON (Kyodo) Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on Tuesday voiced grave concerns over China s unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China seas on the second day of a meeting of the Group of Seven foreign ministers, the Japanese government said. As the ministers discussed issues related to China and Russia, Motegi said during the meeting that Japan is also concerned about Beijing s handling of human rights in connection with the Muslim Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang autonomous region as well as the situation in Hong Kong, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
FEATURE: More young Japanese look to Marx amid pandemic, climate crisis
As the global challenge of climate change mounts and the coronavirus pandemic magnifies economic inequalities, Karl Marx, who pointed to the contradictions and limitations of capitalism, is gaining new admirers in Japan, particularly among the young.
The boom has been ignited by a 34-year-old associate professor at Osaka City University who reimagined the theory expounded in the 19th-century German thinker s seminal Das Kapital from the perspective of environmental conservation in a bestselling book published last September.
Two recent books, including bestseller Capitalism in the Anthropocene (R), released by Kohei Saito are pictured on April 14, 2021. (Kyodo)