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Covid-19 deaths are accelerating, WHO warns, as world records most cases ever in a single week

Covid-19 infections have been rising at an alarming rate for eight consecutive weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, as the virus sweeps unabated through hotspots in several corners of the globe.

More than 5.2 million new cases were recorded last week -- the most in a single week since the pandemic began -- WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news briefing in Geneva on Monday.
Deaths also increased for the fifth straight week, he said, with the pandemic now officially claiming more than 3 million lives.
And Tedros warned that the pace of the pandemic is accelerating, even as some countries tout their own improved vaccination programs.
"It took nine months to reach 1 million deaths, four months to reach 2 million and three months to reach 3 million deaths," said Tedros. "Big numbers can make us numb, but each one of these deaths is a tragedy for families, communities and nations."
And, as more at-risk or older adults are fully inoculated and some economies open up, the director-general suggested the brunt of the virus's spread may be shifting towards younger adults. He told reporters that infections and hospitalizations among people age 25 to 59 are "increasing at an alarming rate," possibly due to highly transmissible variants and increased social mixing among younger people.
Concerns about more young adults contracting Covid-19 have already been reported by doctors in some hotspots -- including Brazil, where a new variant has caused a devastating surge in hospitalizations and deaths.

Shots ramp up as variants cause concern

The stark warning from WHO serves as a reminder of the state of the pandemic, which has not yet dissipated in the face of the world's disparate vaccine rollouts.
India is suffering from a calamitous second wave of the virus, and a significant portion of the world's infections is occurring there. The country has reported more than 200,000 new cases on each of the past six days -- nearly 1.5 million in the last week -- and crowded hospitals are turning away patients as they battle the spread.
Among India's many active cases is former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in stable condition in hospital after contracting Covid-19.
With more than 15 million infections, the country is now only second to the United States in global case tallies. The US has reported almost 32 million infections.
England added India to its travel ban list on Monday and Prime Minister Boris Johnson canceled a scheduled trip there, but political campaigning is ongoing despite the dire situation.
Narendra Modi's ruling party said it would hold "small public gatherings" with a cap of 500 people in the state of West Bengal, one of the five states where state elections are currently being held, according to a statement from the party Monday.
Much of Asia is similarly grappling with increasing cases. A surge in Thailand has dampened hopes of welcoming more tourists there, with hospitality venues identified as a cause of recent outbreaks.
In the US, where millions of people are being vaccinated daily, cases and hospitalizations have risen over the past month. Experts cite coronavirus variants -- including the more contagious B.1.1.7 strain that recently fueled another surge in Michigan -- and a spreading sense of pandemic fatigue as contributing factors.
Meanwhile, in Europe, there are some signs of a plateau in the continent's third wave of infections, and a bumpy vaccine rollout has started accelerating across the European Union.
But vaccine hesitancy and the lingering effects of earlier vaccine scares there are still evident; a mass vaccination center in the southern French city of Nice was forced to close early over the weekend after just 58 people turned up for 4,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine -- which may be linked to a very small number of rare blood clot cases -- a spokesman for the regional police told CNN.
And European regulators face another decision about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which US authorities paused after a handful of clotting cases were reported. A decision by the European Medicines Agency on the shot is expected Tuesday.

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R): 一带一路，一带一路倡议
ravine:     (地理) SC 峡谷，沟壑，深谷
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Extensive reading:

Pakistan bus blast kills 13 including Chinese

A blast on a bus killed 13 people in north Pakistan on Wednesday, including nine Chinese nationals in what Beijing said was a bomb attack but Islamabad called a vehicle failure.

Two Pakistani soldiers were also among the dead after the explosion sent the bus over a ravine, local government and police sources told Reuters.

Chinese engineers and Pakistani construction workers have for several years been working on hydroelectric projects as part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative in the western province of Khyber-Paktunkhwa, where the blast occurred.

China's embassy in Pakistan confirmed that nine of its nationals died. Terming the explosion a bomb attack but not giving more details, the Chinese foreign ministry offered condolences and urged both a thorough investigation and protection of its personnel and projects.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said a mechanical failure caused a gas leak which led to the explosion.

However, the province's top police official, Inspector General Moazzam Jah Ansari, earlier told Reuters foul play was suspected. "Looks like sabotage," he said.

A senior administrative officer of the Hazara region, who asked not to be named, said the bus was carrying more than 30 Chinese engineers to the Dasu dam in Upper Kohistan.

BILLIONS OF INVESTMENT

The Dasu hydroelectric project is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $65 billion investment plan aiming to link western China to the southern Pakistani port of Gwadar.

"This is clearly an act of terrorism that has been carefully planned and was supported by information," said an editorial in Global Times, a Chinese tabloid run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, calling it the most serious attack on Chinese nationals in recent years.

Chinese working in Pakistan have been attacked previously, particularly in the south-western province of Balochistan where separatist militants have waged an insurgency against authorities in a state where China develops mines and a port.

The separatists have also attacked the Chinese consulate in the southern city of Karachi. Additionally, Islamist militants have also previously targeted Chinese nationals.

Using an air ambulance, rescuers took the injured, including Chinese engineers, to a hospital in Dasu, about 10 km (6 miles) from the blast site, authorities said.

"Police and the bomb disposal squad are at the site," added regional official Arif Khan Yousufzai outside the hospital, adding that an investigation was awaited to ascertain details.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said it was in close contact with the Chinese embassy in Islamabad, adding in a statement: "Pakistan attaches great importance to the safety and security of Chinese nationals, projects and institutions."

Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Syed Raza Hassan in Karachi and Yew Lun Tian in Beijing; Adddtional reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Gibran Peshimam and Umar Farooq; Editing by Gerry Doyle, Clarence Fernandez and Andrew Cawthorne

cult     被狂热崇拜之物 顶礼膜拜的对象

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China's curious cult of the mango

In 1966 Mao had called on the student Red Guards to rebel against "reactionary" authorities. His aim was to reshape society by purging it of bourgeois elements and traditional ways of thinking. But by the summer of 1968 the country had become engulfed in fighting, as Red Guard factions competed for power.

To quell the forces that he had unleashed, Mao sent 30,000 workers to Qinghua University in Beijing, armed only with their talisman, the Little Red Book. The students attacked them with spears and sulphuric acid, killing five and injuring more than 700, before finally surrendering. Mao thanked the workers with a gift of approximately 40 mangoes, which he had been given the previous day by Pakistan's foreign minister.

They had a huge impact.

"No-one in northern China at that point knew what mangoes were. So the workers stayed up all night looking at them, smelling them, caressing them, wondering what this magical fruit was," says art historian Freda Murck, who has chronicled this story in detail.

"At the same time, they had received a 'high directive' from Chairman Mao - saying that henceforth, 'The Working Class Must Exercise Leadership In Everything'. It was very exciting to be given this kind of recognition."

This power shift - from the zealous students to the workers and peasants - offered respite from the anarchy.

"Some people in Beijing told me that they perceived that Mao had finally intervened in the chaotic random violence, and that the mangoes symbolised the end of the Cultural Revolution," Murck says.

Zhang Kui, a worker who occupied Qinghua, says that the arrival of one of Mao's mangoes at his workplace prompted intense debate.

"The military representative came into our factory with the mango raised in both hands. We discussed what to do with it: whether to split it among us and eat it, or preserve it. We finally decided to preserve it," he says.

"We found a hospital that put it in formaldehyde. We made it a specimen. That was the first decision. The second decision was to make wax mangoes - wax mangoes each with a glass cover. After we made the wax replicas, we gave one to each of the Revolutionary Workers."

Workers were expected to hold the sacred fruit solemnly and reverently, and were admonished if they failed to do so.

Wang Xiaoping, an employee at the Beijing No 1 Machine Tool Plant, received a wax replica. The fruit itself was destined for higher things.

"The real mango was driven by a worker representative through a procession of beating drums and people lining the streets, from the factory to the airport," says Wang.

The workers had chartered a plane to fly a single mango to a factory in Shanghai.

When one of the mangoes began to rot, workers peeled it and boiled the flesh in a vat of water, which then became "holy" - each worker sipped a spoonful. (Mao is said to have chuckled on hearing this particular detail.)

"From the very beginning, the mango gift took on a relic-like quality - to be revered and even worshipped," says Cambridge University lecturer Adam Yuet Chau. "Not only was the mango a gift from the Chairman, it was the Chairman."

This association is reflected in a poem from the period:

Seeing that golden mango / Was as if seeing the Great Leader Chairman Mao!

Standing before that golden mango / Was just like standing beside Chairman Mao!

Again and again touching that golden mango: / the golden mango was so warm!

Again and again smelling the mango: / that golden mango was so fragrant!

The mangoes toured the length and breadth of the country, and were hosted in a series of sacred processions. Red Guards had wrecked temples and shrines, but destroying artefacts is easier than erasing religious behaviour, and soon the mangoes became the object of intense devotion. Some of the rituals imitated centuries of Buddhist and Daoist traditions, and the mangoes were even placed on an altar to which factory workers would bow.

China has a long history of symbolic associations with food, which may have encouraged extravagant interpretations of Mao's gift. The mangoes were compared to Mushrooms of Immortality and the Longevity Peach of Chinese mythology. The workers surmised that Mao's gift was an act of selflessness, in which he sacrificed his longevity for theirs.

Little did they know that he disliked fruit. Nor were they concerned to learn that Mao was simply passing on a gift he had already received. There is a tradition in China of zhuansong, or re-gifting. It may be regarded as vulgar in the West, but in China re-gifting is widely seen as a compliment, enhancing the status of both the giver and the recipient.

The mangoes also proved to be a gift to the propaganda department of the Communist Party, which quickly manufactured mango-themed household items, such as bed sheets, vanity stands, enamel trays and washbasins, as well as mango-scented soap and mango-flavoured cigarettes. Massive papier-mache mangoes appeared on the central float during the National Day Parade in Beijing in October 1968. Far away in Guizhou province, thousands of armed peasants fought over a black and white photocopy of a mango.

But not everybody was so enthusiastic about the fruit. The artist Zhang Hongtu told me of his scepticism.

"When the mango story was published in the newspaper, I thought it was funny, stupid, ridiculous! I'd never had a mango, but I knew it was a fruit, and any fruit will rot."

Those who expressed their doubts, however, were severely punished. A village dentist was publicly humiliated and executed after comparing a "touring" mango to a sweet potato.

The mango fever fizzled out after 18 months, and soon discarded wax replicas were being used as candles during electrical outages.

On a visit to Beijing in 1974, Imelda Marcos took a case of the Philippine national fruit - mangoes - as a gift for her hosts. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, known as "Madame Mao" in the West, tried to replicate the earlier enthusiasm, sending the mangoes to workers. They dutifully held a ceremony and gave thanks, but Jiang Qing lacked her husband's sense of political timing.

The following year, as Mao lay ill and with no clear successor in sight, she commissioned a new film, Song of the Mango, to enhance her credibility. But within a week of its release, Jiang was arrested and the film was taken out of circulation. It was the final chapter in the mango story.

preside over   主持（会议等）; 负责… 掌管…

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Judge in Meng Wanzhou extradition hearing suggests American fraud charge is unusual

A judge presiding over the extradition hearing of a Chinese executive being sought by the United States says the fraud charge against Meng Wanzhou is unusual.

No one lost money, the allegations are several years old, and the intended victim, a global bank, knew the truth even as it was allegedly being lied to, Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the B.C. Supreme Court said Thursday.

Her comments – objecting when a Canadian government lawyer said the case is neither unique nor unprecedented – conveyed the impression, for a second day in a row, that the U.S. case against Ms. Meng faces challenges in winning judicial approval.

Canada’s arrest of Ms. Meng at the request of the United States in December, 2018, has sparked a confrontation with China, which has detained two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, for nearly 1,000 days in apparent reprisal, and just this week upheld the death sentence on a third, Robert Schellenberg. China says the Meng case is politically motivated.

The hearing is now in its evidence phase. The judge must decide whether there is enough evidence to send Ms. Meng, the chief financial officer of China’s biggest telecom company, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., to trial in New York. Extradition is not a trial; there only has to be some evidence on which a jury could convict. But the judge must do a meaningful assessment of the evidence to ensure the “justice or rightness” of committing Ms. Meng to trial, as the Supreme Court of Canada has instructed.

Ms. Meng is accused of lying to HSBC, a global bank, in Hong Kong in 2013 about the relationship between Huawei and Skycom Tech Co. Ltd., putting the bank at risk of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran as it dealt with the two companies.

Associate Chief Justice Holmes indicated she has questions about the justice or rightness of the case.

On Wednesday, the first day of the evidence phase, the judge said she was having “great difficulty” understanding how sanctions law applies to the alleged fraud, as Ms. Meng acknowledged doing business in Iran and the U.S. did not spell out in the legal documents provided to Canadian authorities what the line was between legal and illegal activity.

On Thursday, Associate Chief Justice Holmes reacted when Robert Frater, a lawyer for the Attorney-General of Canada, which is presenting the U.S. case, said the fraud charge was not unique.

“On the facts, isn’t it unusual that one will see a fraud case with no actual harm many years later?” asked the judge, a former prosecutor specializing in corporate crime. “And one in which the alleged victim, a large institution, appears to have had numerous people within the institution who had all the facts that are now said to be misrepresented?”

“The law is quite clear about that,” Mr. Frater replied. “As you yourself said, people within the institution may know and have been participants [but that] doesn’t mean there is no fraud.”

Associate Chief Justice Holmes: “I’m simply suggesting that it may be unusual to have both of those features: no actual loss and arguably fairly extensive knowledge within the institution of the true state of affairs.”

Mr. Frater: “Right, and in our law, those features of a case are usually taken care of in sentencing because it speaks to the seriousness of the offence perhaps.”

The Attorney-General needs to show not only that Ms. Meng lied to HSBC in a PowerPoint presentation in 2013, but also that the lies put HSBC at risk of economic harm – in particular, for breaking the rules on sanctions. Whether the risk was remote is also an issue in the case.

Trying to show the connection between the alleged deceit and the risk of harm, or deprivation, Mr. Frater said: “A deprivation exists where a victim is deprived of the opportunity to protect itself.” Because Ms. Meng was dishonest, “HSBC was deprived of the opportunity to protect itself by blocking any transaction related to Skycom, or deciding to end the relationship with Huawei altogether.”

Citing a 2011 appeal court ruling affirming the fraud convictions against theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky, Mr. Frater said: “Proof of actual loss is irrelevant. Proof of risk to the economic interests of the victim is sufficient.” U.S. authorities could have held HSBC criminally or civilly responsible for a sanction violation.

He said it was clear Ms. Meng had a criminal intent to mislead. “Ms. Meng’s PowerPoint is clearly an artfully prepared script that is generous in its description of sanctions … but economical in its description of the nature of the Huawei-Skycom relationship. This demonstrates that there is a reasonable inference of the deliberate character of the representations.”

On Friday, Ms. Meng’s legal team will have its chance to show that the evidence against her is “manifestly unreliable” and “defective” – the standard for undermining the case for committal.

burka, burqa (女性穿的)         穆斯林长袍 (眼睛都不露的辣肿）
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The return of Taliban: Burqa prices surge tenfold in Afghanistan

The Taliban, have returned and so has the fear among many Afghan women of losing the gains they have made over the past 20 years. This fear reflects in the demand for burqas that has surged tenfold in Kabul.

The Taliban have recaptured power with a promise of bringing a new era of peace in Afghanistan. But what the fighters have brought with themselves for the people of Afghanistan are the haunting memories of their brutal rule before they were ousted by the US following the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks on the United States.

Among the many fears the Afghans are living with is that of the women in the country who are dreading the loss of the gains they have made over the years in terms of civil rights. The fear reflects in the fact that the demand for burqas, an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions, has skyrocketed in Afghanistan.

During the earlier Taliban rule, women were required to cover their bodies and faces in a burqa, and were barred from school, work or leaving the house without a male relative.

With the return of the Taliban and an entire generation's hopes of building a modern, democratic state going down the drain, women in the war-ravaged nation have started going back to burqas, leading to a whopping tenfold surge in the prices of the traditional attire in Kabul, as per reports.

A CNN report quoted a woman in Kabul saying that her household had just one to two burqas to share between her, her sister and their mother.

"If we don't have a burqa, we have to get a bedsheet or something to make it a bigger scarf," she said.

While the Taliban leadership has assured that it is open to women's education, rights groups say the rules vary depending on local commanders and the communities themselves.

A 25-year-old university graduate, who works for a local NGO in Afghanistan's Herat, said she hasn't left home in weeks because of the fighting. From speaking with other residents, she said there were few if any women out on the streets, with even female doctors staying home until the situation is clearer.

"I can't face Taliban fighters. I don't have a good feeling about them. No one can change the Taliban's stance against women and girls, they still want women to stay at home," news agency AP quoted her as saying.

"I don't think I would be ready to wear a burqa," she said, referring to the all-encompassing blue robe women were forced to wear under Taliban rule. "I can't accept it. I will fight for my rights, whatever happens," she said.

张握一门外语很重要

Scientists find oldest fossils of dinosaurs that lived in a herd



https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/dinosaur-herd-1.6220790

coup  政变
/kuː/
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Sudan coup: Military dissolves civilian government and arrests leaders




A coup is under way in Sudan, where the military has dissolved civilian rule, arrested political leaders and declared a state of emergency.

The coup leader Gen Abdel Fattah Burhan has blamed political infighting.

Protesters have taken to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and other cities and there are reports of gunfire.

Military and civilian leaders have been at odds since long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir was overthrown two years ago and a transitional government set up.

Army and paramilitary troops have been deployed across the capital, Khartoum airport is closed, and international flights are suspended. The internet is also down.

BBC Arabic's Mohamed Osman, in Khartoum, says large numbers of protestors are demanding the return of civilian rule and that demonstrations have spread to a number of other locations, including the cities of Atbara, Wad Madani and Port Sudan.

More protestors are expected to be drawn to the streets in the coming hours after calls for action by political parties and professional unions, our correspondent adds.

One demonstrator Sawsan Bashir told AFP: "We will not leave the streets until the civilian government is back and the transition is back."

"We are ready to give our lives for the democratic transition in Sudan," another protester, Haitham Mohamed said.

Video footage from Khartoum on Monday showed large groups in the streets, including many women. Make shift barricades of burning tyres can be seen in the streets, with plumes of black smoke rising in various parts of the city.

"There is tension and also violence because people tried to go to the army headquarters… they were met with gunshots", human rights defender Duaa Tariq told the BBC. She added there was fear and confusion in the streets, but also solidarity between the protesters.

Civilian leaders arrested

Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok and his wife are among those reported to have been detained and put under house arrest, along with members of his cabinet and other civilian leaders.

They are part of a transitional government designed to steer Sudan towards democracy after the rule of former president, Omar al-Bashir.

A statement from the information ministry on Facebook said those arrested were being held in "an unidentified location".

It also said Mr Hamdok was being pressed to support a coup but was refusing to do so, and instead he urged people to continue with peaceful protests to "defend the revolution".

Gen Burhan had been leading the power-sharing arrangement between military and civilian leaders, known as the Sovereign Council.

In a televised address, he said infighting between politicians, ambition and incitement to violence had forced him to act to protect the safety of the nation and to "rectify the revolution's course".

He said Sudan was still committed to "international accords" and the transition to civilian rule, with elections planned for July 2023.

Gen Burhan had been leading the power-sharing arrangement between military and civilian leaders, known as the Sovereign Council.

In a televised address, he said infighting between politicians, ambition and incitement to violence had forced him to act to protect the safety of the nation and to "rectify the revolution's course".

He said Sudan was still committed to "international accords" and the transition to civilian rule, with elections planned for July 2023.

独一无二的全新单词记忆方法：利用形似词句子，让单词记忆易如反掌！

英语中有大量的词长得很像： addition-addiction; abortive-sportive； bullet-gullet； cancer-canker； money-ceremony-testimony；...

这就是形似词，paronyms。用两个或几个形似词造成一个有意思的句子，形似词就很容易记住了。

已造4400多个个句子，涵盖>90%的雅思/托福词汇。


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介绍性视频: https://youtu.be/XqrFk6HKk1Q
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视频 #2: https://youtu.be/fo0tigxjJRo
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视频 #4: https://youtu.be/6yhAWj2F3Mc
视频 #5: https://youtu.be/qK-VepbddyE
视频 #6: https://youtu.be/YXdtfYpMzR0

形似词句子学习英语词汇第7、8期视频：
https://youtu.be/B8_tiH-JuaM
https://youtu.be/HdG6RnP3V0I