San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Under pressure, China doubles virus death toll
China on Saturday reported nearly 60,000 deaths in people who had COVID-19 since early December after complaints it was failing to release data, and said the “emergency peak” of its latest surge appears to have passed.
The toll included 5,503 deaths due to respiratory failure caused by COVID-19 and 54,435 fatalities from other ailments combined with COVID-19 since Dec. 8, the National Health Commission announced. It said those “deaths related to COVID” occurred in hospitals, which left open the possibility more people also might have died at home.
The report would more than double China’s official COVID-19 death toll to 10,775 since the disease was first detected in Wuhan in late 2019. China has counted only deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official death toll, a narrow definition that excludes many deaths that would be attributed to COVID-19 in other places.
China stopped reporting data on deaths and infections after abruptly lifting anti-virus controls in early December. The World Health Organization and other governments appealed for information after reports by city and provincial governments suggest as many as hundreds of millions of people in China might have contracted the virus.
The peak of the latest infection wave appears to have passed based on the decline in the number of patients visiting clinics, said a National Health Commission official, Jiao Yahui. The number of people going to the clinics peaked at 2.9 million on Dec. 23 and had fallen by 83% to to 477,000 on
Thursday, said Jiao.
This month, WHO DirectorGeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said agency officials met with Chinese officials to underline the importance of sharing more details about COVID-19 issues including hospitalization rates and genetic sequences.
Dual national hanged on spying charges
Iran said Saturday it hanged a former high-ranking defense official and dual Iranian-British national, despite international warnings not to carry out the death sentence. The execution further escalated tensions with the West amid the nationwide protests shaking the Islamic Republic.
The hanging of Ali Reza Akbari drew immediate anger from London. “This was a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.
Iran has alleged, without providing evidence, that Akbari served as a source for Britain’s foreign intelligence service, known as MI6. A lengthy statement issued by Iran’s judiciary claimed Akbari received large sums of money, his British citizenship and other help in London for providing information to the intelligence service.
Iran’s government for months has been trying to allege that foreign countries have fomented the unrest gripping the Islamic Republic since the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in September after her detention by the morality police.
Protesters say they are angry over the collapse of the economy, heavy-handed policing and the entrenched power of the country’s Islamic clergy.
Thousands protest coal mine expansion
Thousands of people demonstrated Saturday to protest the clearance and demolition of a village in western Germany that is due to make way for the expansion of a coal mine.
Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg joined the demonstrators as they protested the clearance of Luetzerath, walking through the nearby village of Keyenberg and past muddy fields. Protesters chanted “Every village stays” and “You are not alone.”
Organizers said about 35,000 people took part, while police put the figure at up to 15,000. On the sidelines of the protest, police said people broke through their barriers and some got into the Garzweiler coal mine.
German news agency dpa reported that police used water cannons and batons just outside
Luetzerath itself, which is fenced off, against hundreds of people who approached.
Luetzerath has become a cause celebre for critics of Germany’s climate efforts. Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.
The regional and national governments, both of which include the environmentalist Green party, reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the abandoned village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038. Leaders of the Greens argue the deal fulfills many of the environmentalists’ demands and saved five other villages from demolition.
Winning lottery ticket sold in Maine
Maine scored its first Mega Millions jackpot when a ticket purchased in the state matched the winning numbers for the
lottery’s estimated $1.35 billion grand prize.
The numbers drawn late Friday night were: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61 and gold Mega Ball 14. The winning ticket was sold at Hometown Gas & Grill in Lebanon, Maine, according to the Maine State Lottery.
The winner, whose name is not yet known, overcame steep odds of 1 in 302.6 million, which followed three months of drawings without a claim on the jackpot. Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The jackpot was the second largest in Mega Millions history and the fourth time the game has had a billion-dollar win. The largest Mega Millions jackpot in October 2018 was $1.53 billion claimed by a single ticket holder in South Carolina.
To claim the full $1.35 billion, the winner would need to take the money in an annuity with annual payments over 29 years. Most jackpot recipients prefer the reduced but quicker cash option, which for Friday night’s drawing was an estimated $724.6 million.