China’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress yesterday began deliberating a proposal to ban all trade and consumption of wild animals, a practice believed responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak that has swept the nation.
“It aims to completely ban the eating of wild animals and crack down on illegal wildlife trade,” Xinhua news agency said of the proposal.
The report added that the measure was aimed at “safeguarding public health and ecological security.”
The committee is responsible for convening the 3,000-member National People’s Congress, but is expected to postpone the annual session due to the health crisis.
The session is due to start early next month.
Chinese health officials have said that the coronavirus likely emerged from a market in Wuhan that sold wild animals as food.
Late last month after the epidemic began, the government ordered a temporary ban “until the national epidemic situation is over.”
It was not clear when a decision would be made on the proposed ban, which is likely to face skepticism.
Conservationists have accused China of tolerating a shadowy trade in exotic animals for food or use in traditional medicines whose efficacy is not confirmed by science.
China instituted a similar temporary ban after SARS killed hundreds of people in 2002 and 2003, and was also traced to wild-animal consumption, but the wildlife trade soon resumed.
Health experts say it poses a significant and growing public health risk by exposing humans to dangerous animal-borne pathogens.
The exact source of COVID-19 remains unconfirmed, with scientists variously speculating it originated in bats, pangolins or some other mammal.
Scientists say SARS likely originated in bats, later reaching humans via civets.
Civets were among dozens of species listed for sale by one of the merchants at the Wuhan market, according to a price list that circulated online.
Other items included rats, snakes, giant salamanders and live wolf pups.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in