Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing’s core business has been profitable, president Jean Liu Qing said for the first time, as ride orders in its domestic market recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.In a rare interview, Liu told the CNBC that Didi’s core business has been profitable, without providing specific figures or explaining how or when the company had measured its profitability. The company has no plans for job cuts or raising capital, Liu said in the interview that…

Car sales in China likely rose in April from a year earlier, its top industry body said on Thursday, ending almost two years of declines and signalling that the world’s biggest market is recovering from the coronavirus shock.April’s sales of 2 million units likely pushed sales up 0.9 per cent from a year earlier, and 39.8 per cent from March, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said in a post on its official WeChat account.It added its forecast was based on sales data it…

Negotiations between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours for a South China Sea code of conduct have been postponed as the nations involved put their efforts into containing the Covid-19 pandemic, creating uncertainty about whether the two sides can work together amid rising tensions in the contested territory.Southeast Asian nations are increasingly caught in a dilemma whether to maintain relations with Beijing during the pandemic while also fearing that tensions over the disputed waters…

Taiwan will gradually ease restrictions on travel and sporting activities, with the island’s health minister saying efforts to control the coronavirus were paying off.The island – home to 23 million people – had reported just 440 cases and six deaths from Covid-19 as of Thursday, with no local transmission for close to a month.Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said that with very few new cases among people returning to the island from elsewhere, the authorities would allow Taiwanese stranded in…

China says it supports World Health Organisation efforts to investigate the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, but rejects any “presumption of guilt”, after the global body said it was talking to Beijing about sending another delegation to the country.The remarks came as Beijing is under mounting international pressure – particularly from the United States – to allow an inquiry into how the pandemic started, and if it was linked to a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the new virus strain was…

A surprise jump in Chinese exports in April will be short-lived, analysts said, with the world’s second largest economy unable to stay sheltered from the demand shock to come from the global economic downturn.A 3.5 per cent rise in shipments last month caught economists by surprise and left them scrambling for explanations as the consensus forecast was for an 11 per cent contraction.The rise was, in part, due to factories coming back online in China in March and April to fulfil orders that had…

Criminal investigators in the United States have stepped up their pursuit of Covid-19 fraudsters selling unproven treatments and equipment online.The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) has partnered with major health care and e-commerce companies to fight back against a deluge of fake goods being sold during the pandemic.There has been a rise in opportunists seeking to “capitalise and profit from the fear and anxiety” surrounding the Covid-19 disease, increasing sales of counterfeit…

The European Union remains central to the global fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, but the rivalry between China and the United States is doing little to help, the EU’s envoy to China said on Thursday.“We are seeing high levels of tensions – strategic, economic, political – growing day after day. It is our opinion that these tensions are not conducive to the cooperative spirit we need today,” ambassador Nicolas Chapuis told an online press briefing.“I am convinced that the EU voice is today…

The idea of aircraft being powered by plasma drives might sound like something from a science fiction film, but a group of Chinese scientists has developed a prototype that might one day make it a reality.The team, from the Institute of Technological Sciences at Wuhan University, said in a paper published on Tuesday that they had developed a prototype of a plasma jet device capable of lifting a 1kg (2.2lb) steel ball over a 24mm (one inch) diameter quartz tube.While that might not sound like…

As many as 44 million people in Africa could be infected with Covid-19 in the first year of the pandemic if containment measures fail – causing 83,000 to 190,000 deaths – according to modelling by the World Health Organisation, reflecting fears of a potential widening crisis on the continent.The study, released on Thursday by WHO Africa, looked at 47 countries with a combined population of 1 billion people and suggested smaller countries alongside Algeria, South Africa and Cameroon were at a…

Tensions are expected to rise in the South China Sea after Beijing’s annual summer ban on fishing in the disputed waters drew protests from rival claimants.China said it would prohibit fishing activities in the waters Beijing has claimed above the 12th parallel – including areas near the Scarborough Shoal, the Paracel Islands, and the Gulf of Tonkin – to conserve stocks.The ban, which came into effect from noon on May 1 runs until August 16 and China’s coastguard has promised to take the …

The United States has tightened visa rules for Chinese journalists as the tit-for-tat war on the media between the two sides escalated.The rules, which will take effect on Monday, limit visas for Chinese passport holders to 90 days with the option for an extension, the US Department for Homeland Security said on Friday.Journalists with passports from Hong Kong or Macau will not be affected.“The department is issuing this rule to address the actions of the PRC [People’s Republic of China]…

British consumers have spent their six weeks of coronavirus lockdown sewing, drinking cocktails, carrying out home beauty treatments and eating large quantities of kimchi.That is according to a report from John Lewis Partnership Plc on the nation’s shopping behaviour since March 23, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson told everyone to stay at home unless absolutely necessary.The partnership, which owns the John Lewis department store and Waitrose grocery chains beloved by the British middle…

Tourism is a key component in the European economy, accounting for 10 per cent of all activity, but it now faces its greatest challenge – how to survive the coronavirus pandemic?International tourist arrivals could plunge by 60 to 80 per cent in 2020 owing to the coronavirus, the World Tourism Organisation warned on Thursday, meaning the local business is going to be essential.France is the world’s leading destination for holiday travel but President Emmanuel Macron warned earlier this week it…

Legal proceedings have been launched in Switzerland against Britain’s Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah, a newspaper reported on Thursday, over money they were said to still owe on a luxury chalet.Queen Elizabeth’s second son and Sarah, who remain close despite their 1996 divorce, bought the plush holiday home in the Verbier ski resort in southwest Switzerland in 2014 for 22 million Swiss francs (US$21.7 million).The wooden chalet has seven bedrooms, an indoor swimming pool and a sauna, Le…

After the National People’s Congress removed presidential term limits in 2018, there was much speculation that Xi Jinping would remain in power past the end of his second term in 2023.Then 2019 happened. China’s trade war with the United States dragged on, with no end in sight. Hongkongers took to the streets to protest against Beijing’s backtracking on Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” form of governance. Relations with Taipei worsened. And finally, Covid-19, a disease outbreak that began…

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein on politico.com on May 7, 2020.The US Justice Department has abandoned its prosecution of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, throwing in the towel on one of the most prominent cases brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his dealings with the Russian ambassador to the US.But…

The Covid-19 crisis has exposed weaknesses in Chinese health care system despite some impressive reforms over the past two decades, witnesses told an advisory arm of the US Congress on Thursday.China has strengthened its Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve the monitoring of outbreaks and better coordinate local public health authorities, US experts on international health care told the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission.This happened after the…

Top trade negotiators from the United States and China spoke by phone on Friday and vowed to continue to support the phase one trade deal, Chinese state media reported, in their first contact since the agreement was signed in January.On the call, China’s Vice-Premier Liu He, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “vowed to implement their trade deal and boost cooperation on public health”, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.The officials said…

In a series of in-depth articles we look at the global backlash China may face as a result of its response to the pandemic. 1. Who is winning the China-US race to run the world amid the pandemic? Coronavirus crisis has brought potential to redraw the map of global power and influence, but there is ‘deep-seated mistrust’ of Beijing. 2. Has pandemic shifted balance of military force in the Indo-Pacific? Taiwan Strait and South China Sea are settings for China and the US to assert influence…

In a series of in-depth articles, we look at the early lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic. 1. Wanted: world leaders to answer the coronavirus pandemic alarm The international community has sleepwalked into an emergency that it could have prepared for years ago, analysts say. 2. One virus caused Covid-19; scientists say thousands more are in waiting In the second part of our series on lessons learned from the pandemic, we look at the need to identify new viruses and the risks of…

A Utah-based start-up says it has exclusive business rights to the use of smartphones and other electronic devices for tracing people who have come into contact with a person with Covid-19, setting up a potential patent-infringement battle with some of the biggest technology companies.Blyncsy, which describes itself as a “movement and data intelligence” company headquartered in Salt Lake City, holds the business method patent for “tracking proximity relationships and uses thereof” by…

Zoom Video Communications pushed forward on Thursday in its effort to revamp its security, striking a deal with the New York attorney general’s office to protect users’ privacy and purchasing secure messaging start-up Keybase.The company, which has faced backlash for failing to disclose that its service was not fully end-to-end encrypted said it planned to develop tools that will give more controls to meeting hosts and allow users to securely join a meeting and submit them to external review…

The African Union (AU) said it has held discussions with officials from Madagascar to find out more about a herbal drink recently touted by the island nation’s president as a possible treatment for Covid-19.According to a statement issued on Tuesday, AU Commissioner for Social Affairs Amira El Fadil held a meeting with the chargé d’affaires of Madagascar’s embassy in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on April 30, at which it was agreed that more information would be provided about the…

With shops and factories closed nationwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all of the jobs created in the US economy in the last decade were wiped out in a single month.An unprecedented 20.5 million jobs were destroyed in April in the world’s largest economy, driving the unemployment rate to 14.7 per cent compared to 4.4 per cent in March, the Labour Department said in its monthly report, the first to capture the impact of a full month of the lockdowns.The US is home to the world’s…

Researchers have identified a coronavirus mutation that has quickly become dominant as Covid-19 spreads around the world, but it is unclear yet whether the strain will prove more contagious or deadly than the original.A study led by Bette Korber, a computational biologist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, found 13 mutations in the spike protein that the coronavirus uses to infect human cells.One of these, known as D614G, was described as being of “urgent concern” because it…

A large-scale study in New York looking at the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine has cast further doubt on its effectiveness in the treatment of Covid-19 patients.Researchers at Columbia University observed nearly 1,400 patients at a large medical centre in New York City in March and April. They found hydroxychloroquine use led to neither a higher nor lower chance of patients ending up with intubation or death.“Our results cannot completely exclude the possibility of either modest benefit or…

Donald Trump has not donned one. Emmanuel Macron boasted a small French flag on his. Slovakia’s president made a fashion statement by sporting a fuchsia-coloured one to match her outfit.As the world starts emerging from coronavirus lockdowns, political leaders are being closely scrutinised over their choice to wear a mask – or not – with many people questioning the seemingly mixed messages about the value of face coverings as infection barriers.Many Western governments counselled against face…

It took just one month for the labour market in the world’s largest economy to capsize. It will take longer for the damage to be fully realised.In the harshest downturn for American workers in history, employers cut an unprecedented 20.5 million jobs in April, tripling the unemployment rate to 14.7 per cent, the highest since the Great Depression era of the 1930s. And it’s only set to worsen in May, as cuts spread further into white-collar work.“It’s devastating,” said Ryan Sweet, head of…

In early March, throngs of skiers flocked to Austria’s famed alpine resorts in Tyrol, completely unaware the new coronavirus was quietly working its way through the region.Thousands would become infected, bringing the virus home in Austria and beyond – to Germany, the US, Singapore and Hong Kong.Many have now filed legal complaints blaming local authorities in Tyrol for not acting quickly enough to protect travellers.“One of the key questions will be to find out when the authorities knew enough…

US Vice-President Mike Pence’s press secretary has the coronavirus, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week.President Donald Trump, who publicly identified the affected Pence aide on Friday, said he was “not worried” about the virus spreading in the White House. Nonetheless, officials said they were stepping up safety protocols for the complex.US reversal scuppers UN vote on global coronavirus ceasefirePence spokeswoman…

President Donald Trump says he resuscitated Barack Obama’s gasping economy and proceeded to build it to its strongest in generations. Now as record job losses mount across the country, the decline will bear his name in history as well.And those losses come just six months before the election.Presidents of both parties take credit for the economy when it’s roaring and are usually blamed when it fails, regardless of the circumstances of the downturn. An unemployment rate for April of 14.7 per…

In the seven years that Guangzhou native Grace Hexiaoya has called Spain her home, she has mastered the language, become enamoured with the weather and developed a soft spot for all the friendly people that she has met. She likes it in Madrid, where she works behind the counter at the I Love Dulces corner shop and confectionery store. Hers is one of the many Asian faces that can be seen running the Spanish capital’s vital food shops, even as the country – one of Europe’s hardest-hit by the…

From resounding applause to ostracisation and isolation.That is essentially the journey Lt. Cmdr. Robert Embleton, who served 34 years in Britain’s Royal Navy, took by ambulance when discharged from Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, southwestern England, on April 8 following his near-month sickness with Covid-19.Arriving at his retirement home, he immediately went into self-isolation with his wife of 55 years, Jean, who has shown no symptoms of the virus. Soon after, Embleton realised he was…

Forcing people in the US to shelter at home during the coronavirus outbreak may have resulted in less death from Covid-19 infections but also fewer victims of mass shootings.The number of mass shootings in the US plunged 24 per cent in April from a year earlier as churches, malls, restaurants, schools and parks were shuttered and most businesses closed, according to a Bloomberg analysis of data from an organisation that tracks information about firearm-related violence. The decline occurred…

Little Richard, whose outrageous showmanship and lightning-fast rhythms intoxicated crowds in the 1950s with hits like “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally,” has died. He was 87.Citing the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer’s son, Rolling Stone magazine said on Saturday the cause of death was unknown.With a distinctive voice that ranged from robust belting to howling falsetto, Richard transfixed audiences and became an inspiration for artists including The Beatles as he transformed the blues into the…

The Philippines’ decision to allow gaming firms to resume their operations ahead of other local businesses has been met with fierce criticism, but officials insist the move is necessary as the government needs the revenue to fund its response to the Covid-19 pandemic.Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) – which cater to gamblers in China, where the activity is illegal – were ordered to close in March as part of lockdowns to curb the spread of Covid-19. They employ tens of thousands of…

The Singapore government is reviewing the sale and slaughter of live animals at wet markets, Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources, said on Tuesday. The relevant agencies are doing so while taking into consideration international benchmarking and scientific evidence, she added.Her comments were in response to a parliamentary question from MP for Nee Soon Group Representation Constituency Louis Ng. He asked whether her ministry would consider banning the…

A delayed rotation of US Marines to a defence base in Australia’s northern city of Darwin will go ahead based on strict adherence to Covid-19 measures, Australia’s defence minister said after speaking with her US counterpart.Up to 2,500 US Marines had been scheduled to arrive in April, in a major defence alliance cooperation exercise, but this was postponed in March because of the coronavirus pandemic.The remote Northern Territory, which has recorded just 30 Covid-19 cases, closed its borders…

As governments across the world scramble to roll out containment plans to stem the spread of the coronavirus, a survey has found most people are unimpressed with their leaders’ responses to the pandemic.Political leaders from China, Vietnam and New Zealand were ranked highly by their citizens in the survey of 23 economies, scoring 86, 82 and 67 respectively while those in France, Hong Kong and Japan came in last, scoring 14, 11 and 5.When it came to overall scores – a measure taking into…

The Philippines’ largest broadcaster ABS-CBN was forced off the air on Tuesday, the same day Conchita Lopez Taylor turned 90.“We’re used to it,” she said in a phone interview from her home in California.“We” referred to the large Lopez clan who owns the company, which had been forced to shut once before.Taylor was a 42-year-old mother of seven when ABS-CBN’s facilities were seized in 1972 by the clan’s former political ally, then-President Ferdinand Marcos. Her husband, former ABS-CBN chairman…

Since Mumbai native Alex Johnson’s work contract in Saudi Arabia ended more than a month ago, the former cashier in a restaurant has been surviving on one meal a day to make his funds last while waiting to return to India.The 35-year-old, who did not want to use his real name out of concerns there might be repercussions from his former employer, is desperate to see his two-year-old son.In Singapore, Ramya Rekha Chola who is 29 weeks pregnant needs to return to Kurnool in southern India at least…

A series exploring the different experiences of recovered Covid-19 patients around the world. 1. Life as a coronavirus patient in Wuhan during its darkest hour A teacher’s story in the first of a series exploring the experiences of Covid-19 survivors from around the world. 2. Musician recounts horror from Covid-19 bar cluster Mark Anthony Balcueva struggled to breathe and had to be put on a cocktail of drugs, with only the thought of his daughter back in the Philippines keeping him alive. …

As Asia’s rich contemplate where to place their nest eggs, most have overwhelmingly chosen Singapore over rival international financial centre Hong Kong so far this year, according to the region’s largest wealth manager.High-net-worth individuals have mainly instructed their private bankers at UBS to place new money in Singapore rather than Hong Kong, said Edmund Koh, the Swiss bank’s president in the Asia-Pacific region. Last year, the region’s high-net-worth individuals opened more new…

President Vladimir Putin told Russians they are “invincible” when they stand together as the country on Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of the end of second world war on lockdown from the coronavirus.With the number of virus cases surging and authorities urging Russians to stay in their homes, celebrations of this year’s Victory Day were muted after the Kremlin grudgingly agreed to postpone plans for a grand parade with world leaders.Instead of columns of military hardware and thousands of…

by Lachlan Hyatt | Prague Daily Monitor

More than 30 years after the Fall of Communism in the Czech Republic, many of the stories of those targeted during the worst era of the regime are being forgotten as dissidents forced to work in labor camps are dying off.

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Prague Daily Monitor

According to data released by the Ministry of Interior, the number of British citizens living in the Czech Republic has increased about 35% since the Brexit referendum, and Brits with their permanent residence in the Czech Republic have risen almost 55% since 2016.

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Prague Daily Monitor

Strong winds felled trees on to cars and flung loose materials across the city on Tuesday afternoon. The spokesperson for the Prague Firefighter Brigade said that "so far we have responded to 23 incidents related to wind up to 15:00. The most common calls were related to fallen trees, scattered branches and debris."

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Prague Daily Monitor

Judges will no longer have to automatically pause or delay sentences for pregnant women, or women with a child under one year old, and release them from prison if the case includes particularly serious crimes. The judges will be able to make the decision according to factors including danger to those involved. The notion was passed at the first reading in the Lower House and drafted by politicians from almost every political party.

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Prague Daily Monitor

A 31 year-old Czech speaking man approached the entrance to the gate armed with two knives yesterday. When police became aware of the man being armed, the man threatened the police, demanding to be let into the building. Police apprehended the suspect, nobody was injured during the incident. The suspect faces up to four years in prison for violence against an official.

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