1. China reports 19 new cases of Coronavirus on the mainland
China recorded 19 new cases of coronavirus on the mainland on Monday, the country's National Health Commission (NHC) announced Tuesday.
Out of the new cases, 11 were imported and eight were locally transmitted. The local cases include seven from Beijing, along with a case from Shanghai. No new deaths were reported.
The capital continues to post new cases despite local officials last week calling an outbreak at a wholesale food market “basically contained."
In addition, four new asymptomatic cases were reported by the NHC. Currently 99 asymptomatic patients are under medical observation.
China has, to date, registered 83,531 coronavirus cases, with 4,634 deaths.
A total of 78,469 patients have been discharged so far, the health agency said
This comes as 400,000 residents in Anxin County, Hebei province have been placed under new lockdown measures amid a small increase in cases.
Anxin, a relatively rural and sparsely populated county, is located around 90 miles (145 km) south of Beijing, which had seen a spike in coronavirus cases linked to the Xinfadi market in the past two weeks.
2. P&ID: UK court set to resumes Federal Governmrnt’s suit against $9.6bn judgment July 13
A London Commercial Court is set to resume hearing in respect of the $9.6bn arbitration award delivered against the Federal Government in 2017.
A spokesperson for the Process and Industrial Development, the beneficiary of the humongous award, said in an e-mail sent to our correspondent on Monday that the court would resume hearing in the case on July 13 and 14.
According to P&ID, “the purpose of the UK hearing” scheduled to resume on July 13, “is to determine whether Nigeria can challenge the arbitration award made more than five years ago by an independent tribunal”.
Although, the London court had on September 26, 2019, granted a conditional stay of execution and leave to Nigeria to appeal against the enforcement of the $9.6bn award, the British Virgin Island firm said on Monday that the Federal Government failed to file the appeal within the 28 days period allowed for such filing.
It stated that the Federal Government instead of filing the appeal “is now essentially asking the English Commercial Court to reset the clock”.
It said the July 13 and 14 hearing would therefore not have “significant implications” for the Nigeria’s case.
The $9.6bn award was first issued against Nigeria and in favour of P&ID in a January 31, 2017 ruling of a London arbitration tribunal, which held the Federal Government liable for the breach of a 20-year gas supply agreement signed in 2010 between P&ID and Nigeria, through the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
The Federal Government subsequently instituted a series of legal actions at the London court to have the judgment overturned.
This led to the September 26, 2019 ruling granting leave for the court to appeal and a conditional stay of the enforcement of the award.
Asked if he was aware of the resumption of the UK hearing scheduled to resume on July 13, the AGF’s spokesperson, Dr. Umar Gwandu, said he was not aware of the development.
3. The World Health Organisation (WHO) provides timeline of COVID-19 response for 6 months
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has provided the timeline of COVID-19 response activities for general information from December 2019 when China reported the virus till date.
WHO, in a statement issued from its headquarters in Geneva on Monday, stated that the agency would update the timeline on a regular basis and in light of evolving events and new information.
The timeline covered a media statement issued on the 31st of December, 2019 picked from Wuhan Municipal Health Commission to June 26 when the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator was published.
According to WHO, it will continue to provide update on the timeline on a regular basis, unless noted otherwise, country-specific information and data are as reported to WHO by its Member States.
“This timeline supersedes the WHO Rolling Updates and WHO Timeline statement published in April 2020. It is not intended to be exhaustive and does not contain details of every event or WHO activity.’’
It said that as of June 29, the following milestones and events focused on COVID-19 have taken place:
“The Director-General and Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme have held 74 media briefings.
“The Director-General’s opening remarks, transcripts, videos and audio recordings for these media briefings are available online.
“There have been 23 Member State Briefings and information sessions.
“EPI-WIN, WHO’s information network for epidemics, has convened 60 technical webinars, making available 287 expert panellists to more than 13,500 participants, from more than 120 countries and territories, with representation from as many as 460 organisations.
“The Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN) seeks to give everyone access to timely, accurate, and easy-to-understand advice and information from trusted sources on public health events and outbreaks: currently the COVID-19 public health emergency.
“The OpenWHO platform has had more than 3.7 million enrolments, about 80 per cent of which are in COVID-19 courses.’’
The UN health agency said free training was available on 13 different topics translated into 31 languages to support the coronavirus response, for a total of 100 COVID-19 courses.
It said that WHO’s landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines listed 17 candidate vaccines in clinical evaluation and 132 in preclinical evaluation.
“In addition to the selected guidance included below, all of WHO’s technical guidance on COVID-19 can be found online here.’’
4. European Union’s external borders will remain closed to most foreigners
The European Union will continue to ban travellers from the United States and most other countries beyond July 1, EU diplomats tell DPA.
Only 14 countries made it onto the list of states that will be allowed into the bloc, including Australia, Canada, and Thailand.
Chinese citizens will be allowed in principle – but only once China lifts its ban on EU citizens.
The European Council has now initiated the formal written procedure to pass the agreement, according to EU diplomats.
The agreement comes three months after the EU – plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – closed its external borders to all non-essential travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It follows weeks of intense discussions between EU member states about which countries the group should open its borders to and which ones to ban.
The rules will take into account epidemiological factors, such as the number of new infections and whether the trend of cases is stable or decreasing.
China recorded 19 new cases of coronavirus on the mainland on Monday, the country's National Health Commission (NHC) announced Tuesday.
Out of the new cases, 11 were imported and eight were locally transmitted. The local cases include seven from Beijing, along with a case from Shanghai. No new deaths were reported.
The capital continues to post new cases despite local officials last week calling an outbreak at a wholesale food market “basically contained."
In addition, four new asymptomatic cases were reported by the NHC. Currently 99 asymptomatic patients are under medical observation.
China has, to date, registered 83,531 coronavirus cases, with 4,634 deaths.
A total of 78,469 patients have been discharged so far, the health agency said
This comes as 400,000 residents in Anxin County, Hebei province have been placed under new lockdown measures amid a small increase in cases.
Anxin, a relatively rural and sparsely populated county, is located around 90 miles (145 km) south of Beijing, which had seen a spike in coronavirus cases linked to the Xinfadi market in the past two weeks.
2. P&ID: UK court set to resumes Federal Governmrnt’s suit against $9.6bn judgment July 13
A London Commercial Court is set to resume hearing in respect of the $9.6bn arbitration award delivered against the Federal Government in 2017.
A spokesperson for the Process and Industrial Development, the beneficiary of the humongous award, said in an e-mail sent to our correspondent on Monday that the court would resume hearing in the case on July 13 and 14.
According to P&ID, “the purpose of the UK hearing” scheduled to resume on July 13, “is to determine whether Nigeria can challenge the arbitration award made more than five years ago by an independent tribunal”.
Although, the London court had on September 26, 2019, granted a conditional stay of execution and leave to Nigeria to appeal against the enforcement of the $9.6bn award, the British Virgin Island firm said on Monday that the Federal Government failed to file the appeal within the 28 days period allowed for such filing.
It stated that the Federal Government instead of filing the appeal “is now essentially asking the English Commercial Court to reset the clock”.
It said the July 13 and 14 hearing would therefore not have “significant implications” for the Nigeria’s case.
The $9.6bn award was first issued against Nigeria and in favour of P&ID in a January 31, 2017 ruling of a London arbitration tribunal, which held the Federal Government liable for the breach of a 20-year gas supply agreement signed in 2010 between P&ID and Nigeria, through the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
The Federal Government subsequently instituted a series of legal actions at the London court to have the judgment overturned.
This led to the September 26, 2019 ruling granting leave for the court to appeal and a conditional stay of the enforcement of the award.
Asked if he was aware of the resumption of the UK hearing scheduled to resume on July 13, the AGF’s spokesperson, Dr. Umar Gwandu, said he was not aware of the development.
3. The World Health Organisation (WHO) provides timeline of COVID-19 response for 6 months
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has provided the timeline of COVID-19 response activities for general information from December 2019 when China reported the virus till date.
WHO, in a statement issued from its headquarters in Geneva on Monday, stated that the agency would update the timeline on a regular basis and in light of evolving events and new information.
The timeline covered a media statement issued on the 31st of December, 2019 picked from Wuhan Municipal Health Commission to June 26 when the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator was published.
According to WHO, it will continue to provide update on the timeline on a regular basis, unless noted otherwise, country-specific information and data are as reported to WHO by its Member States.
“This timeline supersedes the WHO Rolling Updates and WHO Timeline statement published in April 2020. It is not intended to be exhaustive and does not contain details of every event or WHO activity.’’
It said that as of June 29, the following milestones and events focused on COVID-19 have taken place:
“The Director-General and Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme have held 74 media briefings.
“The Director-General’s opening remarks, transcripts, videos and audio recordings for these media briefings are available online.
“There have been 23 Member State Briefings and information sessions.
“EPI-WIN, WHO’s information network for epidemics, has convened 60 technical webinars, making available 287 expert panellists to more than 13,500 participants, from more than 120 countries and territories, with representation from as many as 460 organisations.
“The Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN) seeks to give everyone access to timely, accurate, and easy-to-understand advice and information from trusted sources on public health events and outbreaks: currently the COVID-19 public health emergency.
“The OpenWHO platform has had more than 3.7 million enrolments, about 80 per cent of which are in COVID-19 courses.’’
The UN health agency said free training was available on 13 different topics translated into 31 languages to support the coronavirus response, for a total of 100 COVID-19 courses.
It said that WHO’s landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines listed 17 candidate vaccines in clinical evaluation and 132 in preclinical evaluation.
“In addition to the selected guidance included below, all of WHO’s technical guidance on COVID-19 can be found online here.’’
4. European Union’s external borders will remain closed to most foreigners
The European Union will continue to ban travellers from the United States and most other countries beyond July 1, EU diplomats tell DPA.
Only 14 countries made it onto the list of states that will be allowed into the bloc, including Australia, Canada, and Thailand.
Chinese citizens will be allowed in principle – but only once China lifts its ban on EU citizens.
The European Council has now initiated the formal written procedure to pass the agreement, according to EU diplomats.
The agreement comes three months after the EU – plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – closed its external borders to all non-essential travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It follows weeks of intense discussions between EU member states about which countries the group should open its borders to and which ones to ban.
The rules will take into account epidemiological factors, such as the number of new infections and whether the trend of cases is stable or decreasing.
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