World Briefs

CHINA  finished building a second new hospital to isolate and treat patients of a virus that has killed more than 560 people and continues to spread, disrupting travel and people’s lives and fueling economic fears. A first group of patients was expected to start testing a new antiviral drug, as China also moved people with milder symptoms into makeshift hospitals at sports centers, exhibition halls and other public spaces.

CHINA A Chinese doctor who got in trouble with authorities in the communist country for sounding an early warning about the deadly coronavirus outbreak lay in critical condition with the illness early today, a hospital reported. “In the fight against the epidemic of the new coronavirus pneumonia, Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected. He is currently in critical condition and we are trying our best to rescue him,” Wuhan Central Hospital said in a social media post just after midnight amid conflicting reports about Li’s fate. Earlier reports by state media said Li had died.

PHILIPPINES Foreign secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. warned that abrogating a security accord with Washington would undermine his country’s security and foster aggression in the disputed South China Sea. The warning came after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened last month to give notice to the U.S. to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement.

NEPAL will count a third gender in its next population census, for the first time counting LGBT people as a minority group that can be allocated government jobs and education. The LGBT community in the Himalayan nation has long demanded the census taken every 10 years count sexual minorities.

INDIA Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament that Indian Muslims had nothing to fear from a new citizenship law and accused opposition parties of toeing rival Pakistan’s propaganda to create fear. Modi said the Congress and other opposition parties had incited the nationwide protests against the law, which fast-tracks naturalization for Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities.

MALDIVES Police said yesterday they have arrested three people in the stabbings of two Chinese and an Australian that may have been carried out by Islamic extremists. Police were investigating the authenticity of a video circulating on social media showing a masked man claiming responsibility for Tuesday’s stabbings. They did not give other details. The victims were reported to be stable.

HOLLYWOOD To the world, he was a legend. Kirk Douglas, the muscular actor with the dimpled chin who starred in “Spartacus,” “Lust for Life” and dozens of other films and helped fatally weaken the Hollywood blacklist, died at 103.
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OSCARS Hollywood’s awards season may not show it, but the most popular films are increasingly diverse, a new study finds. According to new research released this week by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, more of 2019’s top movies featured minority or female lead characters than ever recorded before. Meanwhile, the Oscars will be awarded Monday morning (Macau time).