TRUMP SAYS CHINA GOVT IS BEHIND ‘DISINFORMATION’

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric against China, suggesting that the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, is behind a “disinformation and propaganda attack on the US and Europe”, hours after the White House in a report attacked Beijing’s predatory economic policies, military buildup, disinformation campaigns and human rights violations.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused China of spreading “disinformation” about the Covid-19 pandemic on orders coming “from the top”, a reference perhaps to President Xi Jinping.

“Its disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe is a disgrace,” Trump tweeted, reacting to a statement from a Chinese government spokesperson. “It all comes from the top,” he went on to say in an attack on the Chinese president. “They could have easily stopped the plague, but they didn’t!”

Trump has repeatedly slammed China in recent weeks in an effort to possibly divert attention from the severe impact of the coronavirus on the US and its economy.

There was more bad news on the jobs front. On Thursday, the US labour department reported that more than 2.4 million workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, taking the total number of those laid off in the nine weeks of the lockdown to 38.6 million.

Meanwhile, new infections and deaths dropped considerably, allowing all 50 states to reopen partially. The US is now staring at the 100,000-mark in number of deaths. It reported 1,518 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The situation in New York City continued to improve, but governor Andrew Cuomo has said new cases are still being reported among lower income and minority communities. Of the 8,000 antibody tests conducted in those areas, the infection rate was at 34% in the Bronx, 29% in Brooklyn and 25% in Queens; which were way higher than the citywide average of 19.9%.