About 160 Chinese health workers on Saturday arrived in Liberia, where they are due to staff a new US$41 million Ebola clinic which, unlike most other foreign interventions, is being built and fully run by Chinese personnel.
China, Africa’s biggest trade partner, had come under fire for the level of its response to the Ebola crisis. However, it said this week it would send 1,000 personnel to help fight an outbreak that has killed over 5,000 people in west Africa.
“Up to now in Liberia, China is the only country which provides not only the construction of an ETU [Ebola treatment unit], but also the running and operation, and the staffing of an ETU,” Chinese ambassador to Liberia Zhang Yue (張越) said.
The US has pledged more money and personnel than any other nation pitching in to fight the worst Ebola outbreak on record. However, its response is based on building clinics and training locals to run them.
Zhang said the new team in Liberia included a mix of doctors, nurses, technicians and engineers.
“They have experienced SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome]. They are very knowledgeable in this area,” he said, referring to the contagious illness that was first identified in China in 2002, and which killed several hundred people worldwide.
On arrival, the Chinese health workers had their temperature taken and were made to wash their hands, a ritual adopted across the region as part of efforts to stem the disease.
Zhang said the establishment of the clinic in Liberia brought China’s contribution to the anti-Ebola effort in the nation to US$122 million.
Before China’s pledge to send 1,000 personnel, Cuba was the largest contributor of medical contingents to the crisis.
Both nations are set to see their teams work closely alongside the US, which is providing much of the infrastructure of the international response.
Lin Songtian (林松添), director-general of the ministry’s Department of African Affairs said: “China’s assistance will not stop until the Ebola epidemic is eradicated in West Africa.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the