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Whistleblower doctor
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around the globe as more than 240 cases have emerged in two dozen countries.
A quarantined cruise ship in Japan now has 61 confirmed cases.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, whose countries have tussled over trade and human rights, spoke on the phone about the health emergency.
Xi urged “the US side to respond reasonably to the novel coronavirus outbreak”, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Trump expressed his “confidence” in China’s ability to tackle the epidemic, the White House said.
Beijing has been angered by bans on arrivals from China instituted by the United States and other countries.
Li, 34, died early yesterday, Wuhan Central Hospital said in a post on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform, an announcement that triggered deep sadness on social media over a doctor hailed as a hero.
“He is a hero who warned others with his life,” a fellow Wuhan doctor wrote on Weibo.
There was also a rare collective bout of anger at the authorities and bold demands, including the hashtag “we demand freedom of speech”, which was censored.
“Those fat officials who live on public money, may you die from a snowstorm,” wrote another Weibo user in a comment that was later scrubbed.
In a sign that the criticism has shaken the Communist government, its anti-graft agency announced that it was sending a team to Wuhan to “conduct a comprehensive investigation into issues involving Dr Li Wenliang reported by the masses”.
The foreign ministry and the National Health Commission expressed condolences for his death.
DEATH CENSORED
Li’s death has also highlighted the enormous risks that frontline doctors have taken to treat patients in overwhelmed and under-equipped hospitals in Wuhan, the quarantined city of 11 million people where the virus emerged in December.
Medical staff are overstretched and lack sufficient protective gear, the deputy governor of Hubei province admitted Thursday.
Li sent out a message about the new coronavirus to colleagues on December 30 in Wuhan but was later among a group of people summoned by police for “rumour-mongering”.
He later contracted the disease while treating a patient. Censors appeared to struggle with how to deal with his death.
State-run newspaper Global Times and state broadcaster CCTV first reported on Weibo that Li had died late Thursday, only to delete their posts after the death rapidly surged to be among the top topics on the popular platform.
The World Health Organization reacted to the first reports of his death to express sadness.
Analysts have said local authorities played down the extent of the outbreak in early January because they were holding political meetings at the time and wanted to project an aura of stability.
The first fatality was reported on January 11. The death toll has since soared to 636, with 73 more reported yesterday and an additional 3,000 new infections.
GLOBAL SPREAD
To control the spread, authorities have placed some 56 million people in Wuhan and surrounding cities under virtual lockdown.
Authorities in Wuhan are “combing” communities to find people suspected or confirmed to have the virus and place them in quarantine, state media said.
Major airlines have suspended flights to and from the country, while several countries have advised their citizens to leave China.
But cases keep emerging. Two cruise ships carrying thousands of holidaymakers in Hong Kong and Japan have been placed under quarantine as authorities test people for infections.
Another 41 people tested positive aboard the Diamond Princess in Japan yesterday, bringing the total number of infected cases on the ship to 61.
Another cruise ship carrying a passenger suspected of infection with coronavirus will not be allowed to dock in southern Japan, the government said yesterday.
In Hong Kong, 3,600 people are facing a third night confined aboard the World Dream, where eight former passengers have tested positive for the virus.
While global concerns mount, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that that world was facing a “chronic shortage” of masks and other protective equipment.

BNP waits
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still under consideration.
The opposition party will also stage demonstrations in all the district headquarters today to press the same demand.
Yesterday, the BNP organised doa mahfils in mosques across the country after Juma prayers, seeking immediate recovery of Khaleda from various ailments.
On February 8, 2018, the BNP chief landed in the old Dhaka central jail after a lower court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case. The High Court later doubled her jail term.
Khaleda was found guilty in another corruption case the same year. However, her party claimed that both the cases were politically motivated.
The BNP chief, now facing about 36 cases, has been receiving treatment at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University since April 1 last year.