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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/top-who-official-its-definitely-too-early-to-conclude-coronavirus-originated-in-china/

A World Health Organization official said recently that it is “definitely too early” to conclude that the coronavirus first started in China.

Michael Ryan, the executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, said Friday that “all hypotheses are on the table” as a team of WHO experts kick off an investigation in China into the origins of the virus.  

“I think we have to say this quite plainly; all hypotheses are on the table and it is definitely too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where this virus started either within or without China,” Ryan said at a press conference in Geneva in response to a question regarding the head of China’s CDC’s claims that the virus had not originated in the country.

Ryan said virus discovered in sewage and blood tests outside of China could indicate “earlier infection.” 

“Let’s step back, let’s follow the evidence, let’s follow the science. Our team are on the ground, they’re having a good experience working with our Chinese colleagues. We’re working through the data. The data will lead us to the next phase, where we need to go next to look at the origins of this virus,” Ryan said.

“It is too early to come to any conclusion but again we believe we are making some progress and we hope to continue to do so in the interests of public health in future,” he added.

However, health experts the world over have said that the novel coronavirus likely originated in Wuhan, China in November 2019. Scientists in recent months have questioned whether the virus originated at a live animal market in Wuhan or was the result of a lab accident at one of the city’s two laboratories — the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control — that had been studying coronaviruses that originated in bats. 

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-1-25-china-is-wasting-no-time-in-testing-biden

If you were to consider a job description of the President of the United States, about 80% of it would involve issues of national defense and foreign policy — dealing with the other countries of the world, and keeping America safe. All of the responsibility for defense and foreign policy of the United States is under the personal control of whoever is the President. Whatever else you might have thought of him, and whether or not you agreed with his approach on any given issue, President Trump at least took his responsibilities in these areas seriously. Now we have Joe Biden.

To give you an idea of how seriously Biden takes his responsibilities, when he was Vice President he thought that it was perfectly OK for his son Hunter to travel with him on Air Force 2 to China in 2013 to solicit investments from Chinese-government-controlled funds. And Joe thought it was perfectly OK for Hunter’s company to accept an investment of approximately $1 billion of Chinese-government-controlled money, with Hunter having a prospective ownership interest in management fees charged on that investment. And then in 2017, after Joe had left the Vice Presidency but was planning a run for President, Joe thought it was perfectly OK for his son Hunter to negotiate a joint venture with a Chinese-government-controlled energy company. And then, when the joint venture didn’t go forward, Joe thought it was perfectly OK for Hunter to get a $5 million “non-interest-bearing forgivable loan” from this Chinese energy company.

Can you remember all the way back to January 6? That was the day — with Trump safely headed for the exit door — that China chose to make its move against Hong Kong, rounding up some 53 of the principal opposition politicians who were attempting to run in legislative elections in that city. Now only a couple of weeks on, that event (and its aftermath) seems to have completely faded from mainstream news coverage around here.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16999/china-test-biden

Not a week has passed since the inauguration of President Joe Biden — whose son reportedly engaged in business deals with China worth $1.5 billion — and the Chinese Communist Party, which illegally seized Hong Kong last summer, has already sent more than two dozen warplanes, including bombers, into Taiwan’s airspace for two days in a row.

China also issued a new law permitting its “coastguards to launch pre-emptive strikes without prior warning” on any foreign ship that might enter disputed waters that China would like to consider its own.

Biden’s team should not misinterpret any Chinese conciliatory rhetoric as being a sign of a less aggressive CCP effort to push US military assets out of the Western Pacific.

Xi, a stalwart of the “One China Policy,” may still demand not words but actions, such as: a moratorium on Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) by US Navy vessels in the South China Sea, a cessation of US criticism of Chinese human rights violations, and a promise to reduce American VIP visits to Taiwan following President Trump’s high-level contacts with Taipei.

China has clearly assessed Biden’s capacity for bold leadership as highly improbable.

The Biden administration should not assume that Chinese objectives are negotiable. The CCP is committed to becoming the premier power in the world at the expense of US interests and is most likely willing to risk war to accomplish it.

Not a week has passed since the inauguration of President Joe Biden — whose son reportedly engaged in business deals with China worth $1.5 billion — and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which illegally seized Hong Kong last summer, has already sent more than two dozen warplanes, including bombers, into Taiwan’s airspace for two days in a row.

China also issued a new law permitting its “coastguards to launch pre-emptive strikes without prior warning” on any foreign ship that might enter disputed waters that China would like to consider its own.

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping is certain further to test the mettle of the new Biden Administration within the context of China’s “great power rivalry” with the United States. China’s leadership will determine the manner and speed in which to pursue the CCP’s geopolitical goals based upon Beijing’s assessment of Biden’s response to any test. Historically, the timing and the circumstances of China’s tests of previous administrations have been unpredictable, but there are a few that it seems likely will happen.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16987/europe-iran-nuclear-antics

In recent weeks Iran announced that it had begun work on enriching uranium to 20 percent — just short of the level required to produce nuclear weapons — as well as informing the International Atomic Energy Agency… that it was to resume work on producing uranium metal.

Both these developments represent a clear breach of the JCPOA. Under the agreement, Iran committed to keep uranium enrichment at 3.5 percent, the level required for civilian use, and signed up to a 15-year ban on “producing or acquiring plutonium or uranium metals or their alloys”.

Iran’s announcement that it was proceeding with the production of uranium metal has prompted a furious response from the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, who, in a joint statement earlier this month, warned that there was “no credible civilian use” for the element, and that “The production of uranium metal has potentially grave military implications.

[W]hat makes anyone think Iran would honour a new deal any more than they honoured the old one? Why enter a new sham deal at all?

When the European Union starts warning the ayatollahs that the Iran nuclear deal is at a “critical juncture”, it is a clear sign that Tehran’s increasingly aggressive conduct in relation to its nuclear activities will make incoming US President Joe Biden’s hopes of reviving the deal almost impossible.

From the moment the nuclear deal was agreed to between Iran and six of the world’s leading powers — the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — in 2015, the EU has been an enthusiastic champion of the deal.

Even though neither Iran nor the EU itself was a signatory to the deal, the organisation’s then foreign policy chief, the British Labour politician and veteran Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activist Catherine Ashton, led a sustained campaign on behalf of the EU to support the agreement.