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China warns U.S. is pushing relations to 'the brink of a new Cold War'

Chinese foreign minister warns U.S. officials are pushing relations to ‘the brink of a new Cold War’

  • China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday rejected Washington’s ‘lies’ over the coronavirus
  • ‘It has come to our attention that some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage,’ Wang told reporters during a press conference
  • Wang did not identify what ‘forces’ he was referring to, but US President Donald Trump has led world criticism of China’s initial response to the pandemic 
  • He said Beijing is open to an international effort to find the source of the virus 
  • Longstanding friction between China and the US over trade, human rights and a range of other issues have been pushed to new heights since the virus outbreak
  • Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

The United States is pushing relations with China to ‘the brink of a new Cold War’, China’s foreign minister said Sunday, rejecting Washington’s ‘lies’ over the coronavirus while saying Beijing was open to an international effort to find its source.

Keeping up the worsening war of words with Washington over the pandemic and a Beijing move to tighten control over Hong Kong, Wang Yi said the United States had been infected by a ‘political virus’ compelling figures there to continually attack China.

‘It has come to our attention that some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War,’ Wang told reporters during a press conference at China’s week-long annual parliamentary session.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the United States had been infected by a ‘political virus’ compelling figures there to continually attack China

Longstanding friction between the two powers over trade, human rights and a range of other issues have been pushed to new heights since the virus outbreak.

Wang did not identify what ‘forces’ he was referring to, but US President Donald Trump has led world criticism of China’s initial response to the pandemic, which has caused more than 340,000 deaths and economic carnage worldwide.

Trump and members of his administration have said China covered up the emergence of the virus late last year and bungled its initial response.

Washington’s criticism has been widely seen in the United States as an attempt by Trump to divert attention from the White House’s own COVID-19 failures.

Wang took an apparent swipe at the US struggles to contain the virus, which has now infected more people in the United States than anywhere else.

‘I call on the US to stop wasting time and stop wasting precious lives,’ Wang said.

He said China was ‘open’ to international scientific cooperation to identify the source of the novel coronavirus, but stressed that any investigation must be ‘free of political interference’, based on science and led by the World Health Organization.

The WHO has called on Beijing to invite the UN body in to investigate the source, but Wang did not indicate if foreign scientists would be invited to come to China.

President Donald Trump has led world criticism of China’s initial response to the pandemic. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are pictured at the G20 leaders summit in July 2019

Wang Yi accuses US officials of ‘stigmatizing’ China

‘Some political figures in the US rush to label the virus and politicize its origins, stigmatizing China,’ Wang said, adding that an investigation must ‘oppose any presumption of guilt’.

Most scientists believe the virus jumped from animals to humans after emerging in China, possibly from a market in the central city of Wuhan where exotic animals were sold for meat.

Governments including the US and Australia have called in recent weeks for an investigation into the exact origins of the virus.

China has proposed instead that the ‘global response’ to COVID-19 should only be assessed when the pandemic is over.

WHO members on Tuesday adopted a resolution, tabled by the European Union, at the UN body’s first virtual assembly to review the international handling of the pandemic, but it does not single out China.

‘Aside from the devastation caused by the novel coronavirus, there is also a political virus spreading through the US,’ he said.

‘This political virus is the use of every opportunity to attack and smear China. Some politicians completely disregard basic facts and have fabricated too many lies targeting China, and plotted too many conspiracies.’

The introduction at China’s legislature on Friday of a proposal to impose a security law in Hong Kong to suppress the semi-autonomous city’s pro-democracy movement also has drawn US and world condemnation.

But Wang defended the plan, saying it must be implemented ‘without the slightest delay’, adding that months of often-violent Hong Kong protests last year against China’s growing influence in the financial hub had ‘seriously endangered China’s national security’.

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Hollywood legend Mel Gibson reveals he wanted to film the whole of Braveheart in GAELIC – The Sun

HOLLYWOOD legend Mel Gibson has revealed he wanted to film the whole of Braveheart in GAELIC.

The actor and director dropped the bombshell during a UK exclusive chat with The Sun to mark the 25th anniversary of the blockbuster movie.

Eager to keep the William Wallace epic as authentic as possible, the Lethal Weapon and Mad Max star, 64, even learned some key phrases ahead of shooting the Oscar-winning flick.

But he dropped the idea after considering how it could appeal to a global audience.

Speaking from his Los Angeles home, Mel said: “It’s always been a thing of mine — an interest in languages which aren’t dead, but hardly spoken anymore.

“I’ve made two films like that. I found it to be something that would make it so real for people like with The Passion Of The Christ in Aramaic and Apocalypto in Mayan.

HOW KEY LINES COULD LOOK…

"They may take away our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

'S docha gun toir iad bhuainn ar beatha, ach cha toir iad bhuainn gu brath ar saorsa!

“There’s something utterly believable about people and their culture when it’s in another language.

“Ultimately, I didn’t have the stones to jump right in and do it at that point. It was only my second film and I thought it might not work so didn’t have the balls to do it until around ten years later.

“It’s also important for the audience to understand the words.

“I was jazzed by that idea but ultimately didn’t have the cojones to do it.”

He added: “I hung out with the Wallace clan in Glasgow and they say things all the time.

“I know how to say shut up and F**k off and do all that but that’s it.”

Mel, who is isolating at home with girlfriend Rosalind Ross, 29, and their three-year-old son Lars, admits he’s been thinking a lot about the impact of Braveheart during the pandemic.

The movie was hailed by historians as helping to pave the way for Scotland's independence referendum.

The flick — which took £300million at the box office — was the biggest movie ever shot in Scotland at the time.

Mel said: “I haven’t been following the ins and outs of the politics of Scotland. I’m not from Scotland so don’t really have the right to have a dog in that fight.

“But I thought it was phenomenal that a piece of art could influence how people govern themselves. It’s remarkable.

“I can say that 25 years goes by in a heartbeat and it still seems like yesterday. I wasn’t exactly a fledgling director as I had directed one small film and had put my toe in the water a year or two before Braveheart.

“This was the second outing and I just went big and, for its time and place, it was a big film.

“And had we not had the assistance of Scotland and Ireland in making it would have been almost impossible. They welcomed us with open arms.

“The drive from the hotel to Stirling Castle where we screened the film in Scotland for the first time was quite a journey. All the way there, I was amazed by the crowds as I’d never seen anything like it.

“There were so many people on the side of the road for the entire journey. I got choked up. It was an amazing experience.

“My 30-year-old son Milo sent me a photograph the other day of me standing on set in a raincoat with a kilt on looking glum on   a miserable day and he was this tiny kid standing there. I told him I want a copy.”

Last year Mel played a Scot for the first time since Braveheart when he portrayed Professor James Murray in the Professor And The Mad Man, who in 1879 began compiling the Oxford English Dictionary.

And he refuses to rule out a return for another flick.

He even has an idea for his pal and Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace to write a movie about The Battle Of Culloden in 1746.

Mel reckons the final confrontation in the Jacobite rising of 1745, would be different to Braveheart because the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart lost to British government forces in the Highlands. He said: “The Jacobites lost but it’s such a remarkable event in history and so sad.

“I remember watching a BBC film called Culloden, directed by Peter Watkins, when I was 12 years old.

“It was phenomenal and I remember thinking how crazy it was. It really fired my imagination.

“That’s another story you could tell. It’s very political and they almost pulled it off that time. Randall should look at that, why not!

“All the clans came down and it was an interesting time. Amazing yet so sad.

“I went to visit the battlefield and looked at the markers of all the dead,  they buried them with their families. It was pretty moving.”

However, Mel, who has multiple movies which can’t be released properly because of the pandemic, fears it could be a while before any of his big ideas come to fruition.

He stars in the flick Force Of Nature alongside Kate Bosworth and Emile Hirsch which is set for release next month.

He is also writing a film which he describes as a new take on The Wild Bunch, a 1969 western about a troop of ageing outlaws who  plot a grand heist.

With Hollywood shut down, he’s not sure how everything is going to pan out. Mel said: “I was in a few movies and two or three  are in the can but there’s nowhere to release in the cinema.

“Maybe they can have some kind of life on some of these streaming services but I don’t know how anybody is going to do it.

“The whole industry has been thrown to the dogs. I was talking to a theatre owner,  one of the big chain guys, who was telling me what he’s losing every month.

“It’s around $40million a month he’s just bleeding. He said he’d be OK until the New Year then he’d be out of business.

“And this is a big corporation so the cinema industry is being beaten to death by this pandemic and it’s hard to say where it’ll go.”

Mel was also scheduled for his first return to Scotland since Braveheart with An Experience With Mel Gibson on December 8 at Glasgow’s DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Glasgow Central. But after many other of his speaking engagements were cancelled, he’s hoping this one goes ahead.

Mel admitted: “I’ve not been back since Braveheart so I really want to get back.

“I’m hoping that it  will come together but what’s happening is so crazy that there’s no guarantees.

“But I’m sure it will all come together one way or another.”

 

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Is Mike Tyson's Boxing Return on the Horizon?

Mike Tyson may be one of the best boxers of his time, and very few men could ever hope to beat him. That said, his boxing career was marked by scandals and controversies.

In the end, Tyson quit boxing after suffering two sad losses in a row. He’s doing better now in retirement, and he has multiple new ways of making money other than boxing.

Despite that though, his competitive spirit has never left him. Here’s a look at how Tyson may have teased a return to the ring. 

Mike Tyson in his prime

RELATED: Mike Tyson’s Ego Was Once So Big He Thought He Was a ‘Demi-God’

‘Iron Mike’ in his prime was just that, hard as iron. He fought in the heavyweight division, and in that division, everyone can knock everyone else out. But he was a different beast, as he could do it so quickly and so methodically that few men could stand a chance with him. 

He wasn’t a wild brawler who’d swing for the fences, he’d find his angles and get his punches through his opponent’s defenses with ease. It just took one of his punches to knock someone out, but he was also a fast puncher, and he could unload a deadly combo in an instant. As a result, Tyson was extremely dominant in his prime, and he didn’t lose a fight until his 38th professional fight.

Why Mike Tyson retired

RELATED: Mike Tyson Once Offered a Zookeeper a Ridiculous Amount of Money to Fight a Silverback Gorilla

Tyson was incredible in his prime, but his dark side soon caught up with him. He was arrested in 1991 and tried for raping a woman a year later. He was convicted of the crime, and he was given a six-year prison sentence, which he served half of.

While this would’ve ended many athletes’ careers, Tyson’s continued after he was released. That said, he wasn’t in his prime anymore, and soon, he started losing both his mind and his fights.

From 1996 to 1997, Tyson had two fights with Evander Holyfield, both of which, he lost. In the rematch, however, Tyson infamously bit Holyfield’s ear, which caused boxing commissions to suspend Tyson’s license. This should’ve ended his career, but he was so popular that he returned to boxing a few years later. 

In Tyson’s next 10 fights, he’d win five of them and lose three. He won the other two fights, but those wins were overturned for different reasons.

At the end of his career, at 38 years old, he just didn’t have anything left in anymore, and he lost to two men that he should’ve beat. As a result, he left the sport and pursued other business ventures. 

Is Mike Tyson returning to boxing?

As Us Weekly wrote, the former heavyweight champion posted recent clips of him training on his social media. At the end of the clip, he says: “I’m back.” In the caption of the post, he teased a return even more by saying: “Anything is possible when you are smart about it.” 

Fans quickly assumed that this post meant that he’s returning to boxing, which is always possible. George Foreman famously set the record for being the oldest heavyweight champ in the world after he won the belt when he was 45. Tyson, in comparison, is 53, so he’s much older than Foreman was. That said, the two men both had incredible knockout power, and this training clip shows that ‘Iron Mike’ still has that.

But, while it would be interesting to see him return to the ring, it’s not very likely. Tyson’s post was an ad for a company that sponsored him, so, in all likelihood, he was just doing a commercial for them. That said, anything is possible these days, so it’s not impossible for him to make a return to the ring.

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See a Sneak Peek of The Real Housewives of Atlanta in the First-Ever Virtual Reunion Episode



Reunion moderator Andy Cohen announced that the episode would be filmed remotely during his SiriusXM show, Andy Cohen Live, in April. The reunion had previously been scheduled to film in late March, but it was postponed as all non-essential work was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Listen, this is obviously not how we would prefer to do it but life is not how we prefer it right now,” Cohen said at the time. “We want to be in the same room, but we cannot risk the health and safety of our Housewives and our incredible crew in Georgia.”

The father of one added, “Atlanta is regarded by many as the Super Bowl of reunion shows. It is one of my favorite reunions to shoot, I look forward to it. And the fact of the matter is, it’s either we do it this way or there is no Super Bowl this year.”

The Real Housewives of Atlanta airs Sundays (8 p.m. ET) on Bravo.

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GOP senators call for tough response against China over coronavirus crisis

The already tattered US-China relationship appears to be taking a hit as a growing chorus of GOP senators begins calling for and taking action against the communist nation over its involvement in the coronavirus pandemic.

Just days after Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) announced a wide-ranging investigation into the origins of the virus and the Chinese Communist Party’s handling of it, a myriad of Senate Republicans began calling for the US to respond more aggressively to China.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told Fox News Wednesday that Communist Chinese leadership “must be made to pay the price” if it is confirmed that the virus had originated in a laboratory in the Wuhan province.

“[That claim about the virus’ origin], if it bears out, shows that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for every single death, every job lost, every retirement nest egg lost from this coronavirus, and Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist apparatchiks must be made to pay the price. If that turns out to be true,” Cotton told the network.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) said in a separate Fox News appearance Wednesday that China’s dishonesty surrounding the virus turned them into “a threat to national security and global health.”

“China has long been the most significant geopolitical threat the United States faces, and we’ve always viewed it as a human rights offense when they censor and silence free speech,” he said.

“We’ve now seen that it’s not just a human rights threat, but it is also a threat to national security and global health when it … comes to this Wuhan outbreak.”

The Texas Republican went on to say that the virus possibly “could have been contained to a regional outbreak” if Beijing had acted transparently, and added that he was introducing legislation to sanction Chinese officials who engage in “actively censoring and silencing public health information that endangers the lives Americans and people around the globe.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a frequent China critic, also introduced legislation this week aimed at the Chinese government.

Hawley’s Justice for Victims of COVID-19 Act would strip China of its sovereign immunity, making the Chinese government liable for civil claims in US courts and thus allowing Americans to sue the country for damages.

His legislation, introduced on Tuesday, would allow US courts to freeze Chinese government assets so victims could enforce their claims against the global superpower.

“The CCP unleashed this pandemic. They must be held accountable to their victims,” Hawley said in a statement.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), also a staunch China hawk, was appointed by Johnson to oversee an investigation into the World Health Organization’s handling of the crisis.

Speaking to Politico about his probe Monday, Scott said that when it comes to the coronavirus, “we can’t trust communist China, we’ve learned we can’t trust the WHO because they lie to us.”

Scott added that he would focus his investigation on what the WHO’s plan was, when it knew how the virus was transmitted and when it grew skeptical of China’s claims that it had contained the outbreak.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that while his priority right now is on combating the virus, he would eventually shift his focus to holding Beijing accountable.

“The Communist Party of #China instinct is to exploit the #COVID_19 crisis for publicity and profit. It proves how they politicize everything because everything, even public health, is subservient to the party,” Rubio wrote in a tweet Wednesday.

“Let’s focus on crisis now,” he continued, “But the time will come for accountability.”

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