Curtis Waters, TikTok king: 'There are no gatekeepers to the industry anymore' TikTok is fast becoming the new grassroots centre of the music industry, the YouTube generation a relic of the past.
Uganda - where security forces may be more deadly than coronavirus In Uganda, at least 12 people have allegedly been killed by security officers enforcing measures to restrict the spread of coronavirus, while the country has only just confirmed its first death from Covid-19. ............. The 30-year-old headteacher was one of those allegedly killed by security forces enforcing a coronavirus lockdown. ........ Critics say the force puts guns in the hands of young, poorly trained people who are unable to reduce the tension in a confrontation. .......... "We've found that security forces have been using Covid-19 and the measures put in place to prevent its spread as an excuse to violate human rights"
Coronavirus in South Africa: Inside Port Elizabeth's 'hospitals of horrors' exhausted doctors and nurses are overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients and a health service near collapse. .......... With key staff on strike or sick with coronavirus in the Eastern Cape province, nurses are forced to act as cleaners, surgeons are washing their own hospital laundry and there are alarming reports of unborn babies dying in overcrowded and understaffed maternity wards. .............. South Africa - which held the coronavirus back for months with an early, tough, and economically devastating lockdown - now sees infection rates soar nationwide, prompting President Cyril Ramaphosa to warn that "the storm is upon us". ........... raises fundamental questions about how those extra months were used, or wasted, by officials. ............. Covid has opened up all the chronic cracks in the system. It's creating a lot of conflict ............... has seen departments turning on each other, and using Covid-19 as an "opportunity to air every grievance that ever happened" ................. "We have seen unions shut down hospital after hospital. Each time one staff member or patient tests positive, all staff down tools. While all these union demands are being met, nothing happens… for up to two weeks," one doctor complained. ................. Health services were circling the drain for 10 years. Now they've collapsed .............. staff were "anxious, fearful… and overwhelmed." ............ the provincial health department was generally seen as so inept and dysfunctional that private donors, businesses and charitable funds anxious to help in the fight against Covid-19 were refusing to deal directly with it. ........... One doctor cited a "culture of not wanting to discomfort your superiors which means people don't often tell it like it really is. ........ a desire by government "to be seen to be doing the right thing", rather than making tough decisions, citing the recent decision to resume community testing for Covid-19, despite the fact that it immediately pushed the entire testing system - including, crucially at hospitals - into a week-long backlog that rendered it almost useless. ............... But the clearest lesson from Port Elizabeth may well prove to be about human nature, and how we respond under extreme pressure. ................ And then there is a third group. "The plain obstructive - a huge element, passive or overtly aggressive," said another source. For them, any sense "of altruism, or duty, has gone. It went a long time ago".
Why US-China relations are at their lowest point in decades The message is that China is responsible for the Covid mess in the country, not him. ............ China has added to the recent run-up in tensions with its harsh national security law in Hong Kong and its repression of Muslim minority Uighurs, which triggered several rounds of US sanctions. ............ a speech about China delivered by Mr Pompeo this week. In rhetoric reminiscent of the Cold War, he accused Chinese leaders of being tyrants on a quest for global domination, and framed America's competition with Beijing as an existential struggle between freedom and oppression. .............. The Chinese do not appear to be looking for escalation, and analysts agree that President Trump does not want a serious confrontation, certainly not a military one ............... unintended conflict. "The buffer that has historically insulated the US-China relationship, the presumption that the goal is to de-escalate and solve problems… has been stripped away" .................. William Cohen, a Republican politician who served as defence secretary under the Democratic President Bill Clinton, thinks it's dangerous that China is being seen as an adversary across the political spectrum.
Coronavirus: South Africans divided over second alcohol ban When it comes to coronavirus, South Africa is the hardest-hit country in Africa with more than 275,000 cases. ........... President Ramaphosa also announced a night-time curfew and said the wearing of masks outdoors was now compulsory.
Covid-19 in Africa: Fighting fake news about coronavirus what the WHO has called an "infodemic" around Covid-19
