The chairman of the Nigerian Chamber of Commerce in China has condemned BBC for reporting fake news about the interview
Since June 16, 2021, Ogbonna Maximus Ikenna, Chairman of the Nigerian Chamber of Commerce in China, has posted a video of himself on his Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms, condemning the false report of BBC.
fake news of BBC
He said, In April 2020, BBC Hong Kong reporter Danny Vincent interviewed him personally through telephone and social media, hoping to report the situation of the Nigerian community in China during the closure of Guangzhou. Later, without Maximus' consent, BBC misinterpreted Maximus' original intention, fabricated the content, published an interview article "Africans in China: We face coronavirus discrimination". Maximus believes that BBC has hurt his conscience and feelings, he should come out to clarify the facts, express his anger and condemnation towards BBC, and reserve the right to take further measures.
A Top Virologist in China, at Center of a Pandemic Storm, Speaks Out
The virologist, Shi Zhengli, said in a rare interview that speculation about her lab in Wuhan was baseless.
To a growing chorus of American politicians and scientists, she is the key to whether the world will ever learn if the virus behind the devastating Covid-19 pandemic escaped from a Chinese lab. To the Chinese government and public, she is a hero of the country’s success in curbing the epidemic and a victim of malicious conspiracy theories.
Shi Zhengli, a top Chinese virologist, is once again at the center of clashing narratives about her research on coronaviruses at a state lab in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic first emerged.
The idea that the virus may have escaped from a lab had long been widely dismissed by scientists as implausible and shunned by others for its connection with former President Donald J. Trump. But fresh scrutiny from the Biden administration and calls for greater candor from prominent scientists have brought the theory back to the fore.
Scientists generally agree that there is still no direct evidence to support the lab leak theory. But more of them now say that the hypothesis was dismissed too hastily, without a thorough investigation, and they point to a range of unsettling questions.
Some scientists say Dr. Shi conducted risky experiments with bat coronaviruses in labs that were not safe enough. Others want clarity on reports, citing American intelligence, suggesting that there were early infections of Covid-19 among several employees of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr. Shi has denied these accusations, and now finds herself defending the reputation of her lab and, by extension, that of her country. Reached on her cellphone two weeks ago, Dr. Shi said at first that she preferred not to speak directly with reporters, citing her institute’s policies. Yet she could barely contain her frustration.
“How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?” she said, her voice rising in anger during the brief, unscheduled conversation. “I don’t know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist,” she wrote in a text message.
In a rare interview over email, she denounced the suspicions as baseless, including the allegations that several of her colleagues may have been ill before the outbreak emerged.
The speculation boils down to one central question: Did Dr. Shi’s lab hold any source of the new coronavirus before the pandemic erupted? Dr. Shi’s answer is an emphatic no.
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But China’s refusal to allow an independent investigation into her lab, or to share data on its research, make it difficult to validate Dr. Shi’s claims and has only fueled nagging suspicions about how the pandemic could have taken hold in the same city that hosts an institute known for its work on bat coronaviruses.
Those in favor of the natural origins hypothesis, though, have pointed to Wuhan’s role as a major transportation hub as well as a recent study that showed that just before the pandemic hit, the city’s markets were selling many animal species capable of harboring dangerous pathogens that could jump to humans.
The Chinese government has given no appearance of holding Dr. Shi under suspicion. Despite the international scrutiny, she seems to have been able to continue her research and give lectures in China.
The stakes in this debate extend into how scientists study infectious diseases. Some scientists have cited the lab leak scenario in pushing for greater scrutiny of “gain of function” experiments that, broadly defined, are intended to make pathogens more powerful to better understand their behavior and risks.
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Many scientists say they want the hunt for the virus’s origins to transcend politics, borders and individual scientific achievements.
“This has nothing to do with fault or guilt,” said David Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford University and co-author of a recent letter in the journal Science, signed by 18 scientists, that called for a transparent investigation into all viable scenarios, including a lab leak. The letter urged labs and health agencies to open their records to the public.
“It’s just bigger than any one scientist or institute or any one country — anybody anywhere who has data of this sort needs to put it out there,” Dr. Relman said.
‘Transparency matters.’
ImageMembers of a World Health Organization team arriving at the Wuhan institute in February.
Members of a World Health Organization team arriving at the Wuhan institute in February.Credit...Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Many virologists maintain that the coronavirus most likely jumped from an animal to a human in a setting outside a lab. But without direct proof of a natural spillover, more scientists and politicians have called for a full investigation into the lab leak theory.
Proponents of a lab investigation say that researchers at Dr. Shi’s institute could have collected — or contracted — the new coronavirus from the wild, such as in a bat cave. Or the scientists may have created it, by accident or by design. Either way, the virus could then have leaked from the laboratory, perhaps by infecting a worker.
China has sought to influence investigations into the virus’s origin, while promoting its own unproven allegations.
Beijing agreed to allow a team of World Health Organization experts to visit China, but limited their access. When the W.H.O. team said in a report in March that a lab leak was extremely unlikely, its conclusion was seen as hasty. Even the head of the W.H.O., Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: “I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough.”
Last month, President Biden ordered intelligence agencies to investigate the origin question, including the lab theory. On Sunday, the leaders of the world’s wealthiest large democracies, at the Group of 7 summit, urged China to be part of a new investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Mr. Biden told reporters that he and other leaders had discussed access to labs in China.
“Transparency matters across the board,” Mr. Biden said.
‘Scientists have a motherland.’
Patients at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in January 2020.
Patients at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in January 2020.Credit...Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In less polarized times, Dr. Shi was a symbol of China’s scientific progress, at the forefront of research into emerging viruses.
She led expeditions into caves to collect samples from bats and guano, to learn how viruses jump from animals to humans. In 2019, she was among 109 scientists elected to the American Academy of Microbiology for her contributions to the field.
“She’s a stellar scientist — extremely careful, with a rigorous work ethic,” said Dr. Robert C. Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology employs nearly 300 people and is home to one of only two Chinese labs that have been given the highest security designation, Biosafety Level 4. Dr. Shi leads the institute’s work on emerging infectious diseases, and over the years, her group has collected over 10,000 bat samples from around China.
Under China’s centralized approach to scientific research, the institute answers to the Communist Party, which wants scientists to serve national goals. “Science has no borders, but scientists have a motherland,” Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, said in a speech to scientists last year.
Dr. Shi herself, though, does not belong to the Communist Party, according to official Chinese media reports, which is unusual for state employees of her status. She built her career at the institute, starting as a research assistant in 1990 and working her way up the ranks.
Dr. Shi, 57, obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Montpellier in France in 2000 and started studying bats in 2004 after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed more than 700 people around the world. In 2011, she made a breakthrough when she found bats in a cave in southwestern China that carried coronaviruses that were similar to the virus that causes SARS.
“In all the work we do, if just once you can prevent the outbreak of an illness, then what we’ve done will be very meaningful,” she told CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, in 2017.
But some of her most notable findings have since drawn the heaviest scrutiny. In recent years, Dr. Shi began experimenting on bat coronaviruses by genetically modifying them to see how they behave.
In 2017, she and her colleagues at the Wuhan lab published a paper about an experiment in which they created new hybrid bat coronaviruses by mixing and matching parts of several existing ones — including at least one that was nearly transmissible to humans — in order to study their ability to infect and replicate in human cells.
Proponents of this type of research say it helps society prepare for future outbreaks. Critics say the risks of creating dangerous new pathogens may outweigh potential benefits.
The picture has been complicated by new questions about whether American government funding that went to Dr. Shi’s work supported controversial gain-of-function research. The Wuhan institute received around $600,000 in grant money from the United States government, through an American nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance. The National Institutes of Health said it had not approved funding for the nonprofit to conduct gain-of-function research on coronaviruses that would have made them more infectious or lethal.
Dr. Shi, in an emailed response to questions, argued that her experiments differed from gain-of-function work because she did not set out to make a virus more dangerous, but to understand how it might jump across species.
“My lab has never conducted or cooperated in conducting GOF experiments that enhance the virulence of viruses,” she said.
‘Speculation rooted in utter distrust.’
The Wuhan institute houses one of only two Biosafety Level 4 labs in China.
The Wuhan institute houses one of only two Biosafety Level 4 labs in China.Credit...Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Concerns have centered not only on what experiments Dr. Shi conducted, but also on the conditions under which she did them.
Some of Dr. Shi’s experiments on bat viruses were done in Biosafety Level 2 labs, where security is lower than in other labs at the institute. That has raised questions about whether a dangerous pathogen could have slipped out.
Ralph Baric, a prominent University of North Carolina expert in coronaviruses who signed the open letter in Science, said that although a natural origin of the virus was likely, he supported a review of what level of biosafety precautions were taken in studying bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan institute. Dr. Baric conducted N.I.H.-approved gain-of-function research at his lab at the University of North Carolina using information on viral genetic sequences provided by Dr. Shi.
Dr. Shi said that bat viruses in China could be studied in BSL-2 labs because there was no evidence that they directly infected humans, a view supported by some other scientists.
She also rejected recent reports that three researchers from her institute had sought treatment at a hospital in November 2019 for flulike symptoms, before the first Covid-19 cases were reported.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology has not come across such cases,” she wrote. “If possible, can you provide the names of the three to help us check?”
As for samples that the lab held, Dr. Shi has maintained that the closest bat virus she had in her lab, which she shared publicly, was only 96 percent identical to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 — a vast difference by genomic standards. She rejects speculation that her lab had worked on other viruses in secret.
Dr. Shi’s research on a group of miners in Yunnan Province who suffered severe respiratory disease in 2012 has also drawn questions. The miners had worked in the same cave where Dr. Shi’s team later discovered the bat virus that is close to SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Shi said her lab did not detect bat SARS-like coronaviruses in the miners’ samples and that she would publish more details in a scientific journal soon; her critics say she has withheld information.
“This issue is too important not to come forward with everything you have and in a timely and transparent manner,” said Alina Chan, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard who also signed the Science letter.
Many scientists and officials say China should share employees’ medical records and the lab’s logs of its experiments and its viral sequence database to evaluate Dr. Shi’s claims.
Dr. Shi said she and the institute had been open with the W.H.O. and with the global scientific community.
“This is no longer a question of science,” she said on the phone. “It is speculation rooted in utter distrust.”
‘I have nothing to fear.’
Dr. Shi, third from left in the front row, with her fellow virologist Wang Linfa, fourth from left, and colleagues from the Wuhan Institute of Virology at a Wuhan restaurant on Jan. 15, 2020. The outbreak had just emerged and the team were working hard to understand the new virus.
Dr. Shi, third from left in the front row, with her fellow virologist Wang Linfa, fourth from left, and colleagues from the Wuhan Institute of Virology at a Wuhan restaurant on Jan. 15, 2020. The outbreak had just emerged and the team were working hard to understand the new virus.Credit...Courtesy of Wang Linfa
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The pandemic was a moment that Dr. Shi and her team had long braced for. For years, she had warned of the risks of a coronavirus outbreak, building up a stock of knowledge about these pathogens.
In January of last year, as Dr. Shi and her team worked frantically, they were exhausted, but also excited, said Wang Linfa, a virologist at the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School who was in Wuhan with Dr. Shi at the time.
“All the experiences, reagents and the bat samples in the freezer were finally being used in a significant way globally,” said Dr. Wang, Dr. Shi’s collaborator and friend for 17 years.
Dr. Shi published some of the most important early papers on SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19, which scientists around the world have relied on.
But soon, the speculation about Dr. Shi and her lab began to swirl. Dr. Shi, who is known among friends for being blunt, was baffled and angry — and sometimes let it show.
In an interview with Science magazine last July, she said that Mr. Trump owed her an apology for claiming the virus came from her lab. On social media, she said people who raised similar questions should “shut your stinky mouths.”
Dr. Shi said what she saw as the politicization of the question had sapped her of any enthusiasm for investigating the origins of the virus. She has instead focused on Covid vaccines and the features of the new virus, and over time, she said, has calmed down.
A study published online Tuesday showed that of more than 24,000 American blood samples collected during the first three months of 2020 and later analyzed suggests that the novel coronavirus emerged in the United States in December 2019.
Editor's note: President Joe Biden has ordered the U.S. intelligence community to investigate the origin of COVID-19. CGTN Anchor Wang Guan examines the timing of the Biden probe and explains why it's more urgent now for countries to work on coronavirus pandemic control and vaccination than an investigation partially motivated by politics.
On May 26, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to trace the origin of COVID-19. That includes investigating a theory that says the virus emerged from a lab in Wuhan China instead of emerging in nature.
Don't get me wrong, guys. It's important to get to the bottom of things to find the source of the virus that killed millions. It could help us prevent the next one.
But the timing of the Biden probe brought many questions too.
Like why investigate now a lab-leak theory that was declared by most mainstream scientists as either unlikely, extremely unlikely or outright conspiracy theory?
A short answer is the probe has been sought by many Republicans and some Democrats too and was prompted by a Wall Street Journal report three days earlier, on May 23rd, saying three Chinese scientists in Wuhan Institute of Virology fell sick in November 2019.
The symptoms, the report says, could be COVID, although it could also be seasonal illnesses like a flu.
Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who was on a WHO mission to Wuhan attributed the sickness of the three Chinese doctors to regular, seasonal sicknesses, saying "there were occasional illnesses because that's normal. There was nothing that stood out."
Shi Zhengli, China's top coronavirus expert at Wuhan Institute of Virology said all staff had tested negative for Covid-19 antibodies.
Some folks would say, wait a minute, all Chinese sources must be taken with a pinch of salt these days. And they have a right to think so. But what about American sources?
This Wall Street Journal report on sick Chinese scientists was based on a "previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report". So it was a government leak-turned-news....an intentional leak from the U.S. intelligence community that became a media story that in turn prompted Biden to order an intelligence investigation.
Are you having a déjà vu? More about that later.
Peter Daszak, a WHO investigator who's been to Wuhan said on May 27th that Biden's probe is "not scientific... it's political...It's not something that you can really reasonably launch a major audit of." The WHO investigation team to Wuhan said it is "extremely unlikely" that the coronavirus was leaked from a Chinese lab. U.S. officials accused the trip of "lack of transparency and access", citing a lot of circumstantial evidence.
But many international research teams including one supported by America's National Institute of Science, also used sophisticated bioinformatic tools to compare genomic data from several coronaviruses, including the one that causes COVID-19, concluded that "the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 almost certainly originated in nature" just like Eloba, Zika or HIV.
Now, the U.S. intelligence community has 90 days to present their findings to President Biden. Truth be told. It is the most formidable intelligence network anywhere in the world. But if history has taught us anything, that is, it can also make mistakes.
During the Bay of Pig incident in the 1960s, the CIA failed to provide President John F. Kennedy the assessment that a covert military operation on Cuba could actually fail without overt U.S. military support, clouding the judgment of Kennedy and contributing to the failed attack.
Before the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s, the U.S. intelligence community didn't warn President Jimmy Carter because it assumed that "the specter of a costly quagmire" would deter the Soviets from doing so.
And we are not even talking about the "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq in 2003, an intelligence failure that President George W. Bush called his "biggest regret."
So back to Biden's COVID-tracing mission, it is important to find the virus' "truest" origin. But if the mission is motivated primarily by politics, perhaps it could wait. After all, there are more urgent things to do, like boosting production and efficacy of vaccines, and ensuring a fairer distribution. Because as we speak, ten of the world's richer countries now possess some 75 percent of global vaccines and tens of millions of lives are on the line in India, in Nepal, in Brazil, in Mexico and elsewhere battling this virus.
On May 22nd, International Biodiversity Day, a seminar on how companies can promote biodiversity mainstreaming was held at Xiamen Tower Yihao Hotel in Beijing, organized by social innovation consultancy Pumbaa Eco. The seminar invited domestic experts and scholars in the field of biodiversity and NGO leaders from Southeast Asia. 30+ industry, academic and corporate representatives participated in the seminar, and over 1000 people watched the live broadcast on Baidu.
■Mr. Zhu Qing, founder of Pumbaa Eco, presided over the meeting.
The seminar promoted greater awareness of the efforts and positive impacts of China's biodiversity conservation efforts among the leaders of two hub NGOs in the Mekong River Basin. They included the NGO Forum on Cambodia, the largest local hub NGO in Cambodia with over 70 local members, and Nature Advocacy in Myanmar, which has a network of hundreds of local corporate alliances.
Chinese companies have been investing and building in the Mekong region for a long time, and Chinese technology has brought them cleaner energy solutions such as photovoltaics and wind power. New Chinese investments in the region are mainly in the resource sector, and energy projects have begun to shift from coal power plants to renewable energy projects.
In 2018, Shenzhen photovoltaic companies and domestic foundations have joined hands with Mekong governments and public welfare organizations to launch the "Mekong Sun Village" project, which provides solar photovoltaic technology and equipment to rural areas in Cambodia to brighten the lives of villagers. The project has lit up the happy life of the villagers.
In addition, Chinese companies have launched many initiatives to fulfill their corporate social responsibility. Many Chinese companies are also carrying out CSR projects in environmental protection, education and support for small and micro enterprises to improve the livelihood of people in the Mekong River Basin.
One of the participants, an executive from an energy company, recognized the importance of biodiversity and the positive initiatives made by Chinese companies. He mentioned that in the last five years, China has provided many special loans to support more than 40 major infrastructure projects in the Mekong countries, such as the new international airport in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the renovation of the power grid in Vientiane, Laos, and the coal-fired power plant in Vinh Tan, Vietnam. Among them, the Sanghe II hydropower plant located in Cambodia has taken the initiative to invest about 10 million RMB, adopting a natural-type fish passage arrangement to provide migratory channels for fish to claim bait and spawn; They have also maximized compensation standards, improving the production and living conditions of 849 local households and 3,845 migrants and shaping a good corporate brand image. At the same time, he suggested that the results of Mekong cooperation must be predicated on the livelihood of the people.
How Chinese companies can contribute to biodiversity conservation in the international arena - with a focus on the Mekong region
How can Chinese companies actively promote international practices in biodiversity conservation? Two NGO guests from Myanmar and Cambodia share their positive suggestions for Chinese companies to get involved.
Nyein Zaw Ko
Nyein Zaw Ko, founder of Nature Advocacy in Myanmar and executive director of the online campaign "Save the Irrawaddy Dolphin", participated in the workshop via an online link. Nyein, who participated in the workshop via an online link, said that business enterprises are constantly looking for emerging consumer trends to create value for consumers by providing solutions to their problems and needs. He mentioned that China, with its large conglomerates and manufacturing industries, is the biggest force for global environmental protection, and that more than half of the organizations that have signed a pledge to stop the wildlife trade are Chinese social media platforms and companies. Therefore, social media engagement can have a positive impact on biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia, especially for ecological conservation in the Mekong River Basin. In addition, he pointed out that the Chinese government's proposal to reach the carbon neutrality target by 2060 is a positive and strong signal that the natural resources of the Mekong River will also be developed and used in a rational way.
Vannara Ouk
Another online participant, Vannara Ouk, is an environmental veteran with over 20 years of experience in policy advocacy, natural resource governance, environment and agriculture, and sustainable development. Vannara Ouk shared his organization's attempts to protect biodiversity in the Mekong River Basin and made policy recommendations for sustainable development, including adding renewable energy options, involving civil society organizations in the entire process of environmental assessment of investment projects, and establishing a shared information platform to ensure investment information is available to the public, etc.
In terms of suggestions for future work by Chinese companies in the Mekong River Basin, Vannara Ouk suggests that Chinese companies strengthen their communication with Mekong communities and provide necessary livelihood support to community members, while engaging them in an environmental agenda. Chinese internet technology companies can play a more important role in raising awareness of the need to boycott animal products.
■ Diinsider Co-founder Bolun Li
After the sharing of the two foreign guests, Diinsider co-founder Bolun Li summarized and extended their arguments, analyzing the international responsibility of Chinese enterprises in the Mekong countries from their biodiversity conservation practices.
Mr. Li has deep experience in global sustainable development work. His organization promotes bottom-up transformative innovation in developing countries and localize international development cooperation. He has conducted fieldwork in Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines, Kenya, Bangladesh, and other countries on issues such as global health, sustainable livelihoods, and social innovation, and has worked with numerous grassroots innovation organizations and international policy institutions.
What can Chinese companies do to protect biodiversity in the Mekong countries? Mr. Li believes there are four ways to start: "bottom-up" community-based sustainable production management, policy advocacy for decentralized resource management, experience sharing and capacity building, and the use of new technologies.
In addition, Mr. Li suggested that a better way is for technology-driven Chinese companies to look for opportunities in the Southeast Asian Mekong River Basin and to find cooperations to promote their technologies to Southeast Asian countries. For example, there are many natural disasters in Southeast Asia and there is urgent need for local communities to introduce technologies such as geographic information and remote sensing infrared.
In addition, Chen Xiaodong, Secretary General of Zhongguancun Zhirong Special Robotics Industry Alliance, Dr. Cheng Chen from Shanshui Nature Conservation Center, and Mr. Zhang Yunbo, a biodiversity expert, were invited to attend the seminar. The guests discussed the best path for enterprises to promote biodiversity mainstreaming from the perspectives of technology, internet and conservation sites respectively.
At the conference, Diinsider, a social innovation agency, released the "Briefing on Social Risks in Countries Along the Belt and Road (Mekong Region)". The briefing, which focused on the "Mekong Water Crisis", suggested that strengthening cooperation between China and the Mekong countries is particularly important in the current volatile international situation, and provided an objective analysis of the positive initiatives of Chinese companies, providing a window for local organizations to understand the efforts of the Chinese community. The sharing of data on the Mekong River Basin will help countries and communities to participate in discussions and dialogue on an equal footing, reduce differences caused by information asymmetries, and ultimately achieve "mutual benefits" up and down the Mekong.
At the end of the conference, the organizers, local NGO representatives, corporate representatives and individuals issued a joint initiative: the Mekong region is geographically connected; economic development and ecological protection need to be developed together. We will join hands with more Mekong organizations to promote the input of Chinese companies to make efforts for biodiversity conservation in the Mekong region.
