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.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
TIGHTENING: Zhu Hengpeng, who worked for an influential think tank, has reportedly not been seen in public since making disparaging remarks on WeChat A leading Chinese economist at a government think tank has reportedly disappeared after being disciplined for criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in a private chat group. Zhu Hengpeng (朱恆鵬), 55, is believed to have made disparaging remarks about China’s economy, and potentially about the Chinese leader specifically, in a private WeChat group. Zhu was subsequently detained in April and put under investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Zhu worked for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for more than 20 years, most recently as the Institute of Economics deputy director and director of the Public Policy Research Center. He
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
CHINESE ICBM: The missile landed near the EEZ of French Polynesia, much to the surprise and concern of the president, who sent a letter of protest to Beijing Fijian President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere called for “respect for our region” and a stop to missile tests in the Pacific Ocean, after China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday, Katonivere recalled the Pacific Ocean’s history as a nuclear weapons testing ground, and noted Wednesday’s rare launch by China of an ICBM. “There was a unilateral test firing of a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. We urge respect for our region and call for cessation of such action,” he said. The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the
RSS