Thứ Bảy, 18 tháng 4, 2020

India toughens rules on investments from neighbours, seen aimed at China


Reuters

India toughens rules on investments from neighbours, seen aimed at China

By Aditya Kalra and Aftab Ahmed
Reuters
By Aditya Kalra and Aftab Ahmed
 FILE PHOTO: Students wear masks of China's President Xi Jinping as other waves national flags of India and China, ahead of the informal summit with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a school in Chennai
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has stepped up scrutiny of investments from companies based in neighbouring countries, in what is widely seen as a move to stave off takeovers by Chinese firms during the coronavirus outbreak.
India's trade ministry said in a notification dated April 17 the changes to federal rules on investment were meant to curb "opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions". It did not mention China.
Investments from an entity in a country that shares a land border with India will require government approval, it said, meaning they can not go through a so-called automatic route.
"These times should not be used by other countries to take over our companies," a senior government official told Reuters.
Similar restrictions are already in place for Bangladesh and Pakistan. But up to now, they have not applied to China and India's other neighbours including Bhutan, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Nepal.
"This will certainly impact sentiment among Chinese investors. However, greenfield investments will not be impacted," said Santosh Pai, a partner at Indian law firm Link Legal that advises several Chinese companies.
Australia has also said all foreign investment proposals will be assessed by a review board during the coronavirus crisis to prevent a fire sale of distressed corporate assets. Germany has taken similar measures.
A February report by research group Gateway House said Chinese foreign direct investment into India stood at $6.2 billion.
China's Bytedance has plans to invest $1 billion in India, while automakers including Great Wall Motor Co Ltd and MG Motor, a unit of China's SAIC, have said they intend to invest millions.
Delano Furtado, a partner with law firm Trilegal, said the notification may also impact Chinese companies with existing investments in the country.
"Any follow-on investments in those entities may now require approvals," he said.
India's notification also said government approval would also be needed to change the ownership of an Indian entity that had existing foreign investment.

(Editing by Euan Rocha and Andrew Heavens)
FILE PHOTO: Students wear masks of China's President Xi Jinping as other waves national flags of India and China, ahead of the informal summit with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a school in Chennai

To avoid hostile takeovers amid COVID-19, India mandates approvals on Chinese investments


World

To avoid hostile takeovers amid COVID-19, India mandates approvals on Chinese investments

Manish Singh
TechCrunch
Some of India's biggest startups including financial services firm Paytm, e-commerce giant Flipkart, social media operator ShareChat, and food delivery firm Zomato are backed by Chinese VCs.
HDFC, India's biggest bank, said earlier this month that Bank of China had raised its stake in the mortgage lender by over 1%.
Rahul Gandhi, the former head of political party Indian Nation Congress, urged the ruling government earlier this month to take measures to prevent "foreign interests from taking control of any Indian corporate at this time of national crisis."
The revision in policy comes at a time when major investors in India have cautioned local startups to prepare for a tough period ahead. Earlier this month, they told startup founders that raising fresh capital is likely be more challenging than ever for the next few months.
Recent data from research firm Tracxn showed that Indian startups have already started to face the pressure.
Local startups participated in 79 deals to raise $496 million in March, down from $2.86 billion that they raised across 104 deals in February and $1.24 billion they raised from 93 deals in January this year, according to Tracxn. In March last year, Indian startups had raised $2.1 billion across 153 deals, the firm said.
India ordered a nationwide lockdown last month in a bid to curtail the spread of the coronavirus disease. But the move, as in other markets, has come at a cost. Millions of businesses and startups are facing severe disruptions.
Late last month, more than 100 prominent startups, VC funds, and industry bodies requested New Delhi to provide them with a relief fund to combat the disruption.

WHO Chief Tedros Has Got to Go


World

WHO Chief Tedros Has Got to Go

Jianli Yang and Aaron Rhodes
National Review
If the deadly and destructive made-in-China COVID-19 crisis has a silver lining, it is this: The strengths and weaknesses of particular leaders, governments, and institutions around the world have been exposed by the pandemic, thus providing an impetus for reform.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has come under particular scrutiny at a time of rising skepticism about the ability of international institutions to act responsibly and transparently independent of corrupt political influence. The U.S., which is by far the single largest funder of the WHO, has enormous leverage in this case, and is now beginning to use it: The Trump administration, angered by the WHO’s role in the pandemic crisis, recently announced that it would suspend and review the $400 million annual American contribution to the group.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, bears primary responsibility for its missteps in responding to the crisis, particularly its crucial early delay in classifying COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. It is thus appropriate to inquire about his background and the motivations that have driven his actions in this pandemic.
Tedros, a trained microbiologist who did earn an MSc in the immunology of infectious diseases at the University of London, was Ethiopia’s minister of health from 2005 to 2012, and subsequently its minister of foreign affairs from 2012 to 2016. He was also served on the nine-member executive committee of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), one of four ethnically based political parties making up the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the brutal authoritarian regime that ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist from 1991 to 2019.
When Tedros sought to become WHO director-general in 2017, he met with fierce opposition to his candidacy from Ethiopians angry with his service to and defense of the country’s abusive regime, as well as his record as minister of health. He was ultimately confirmed despite allegations that, as minister of health, he directed the cover-up of three deadly cholera epidemics by simply insisting that they were Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD), apparently hoping to avoid the impact that the public admission of a cholera epidemic might have had on Ethiopian tourism and the image of his party.
In retrospect, that episode bears a striking, chilling resemblance to the WHO’s response to the coronavirus’s appearance in China.
For as long as he could, Tedros was happy to validate Beijing’s clumsy efforts to minimize and downplay the viral outbreak in Wuhan. While China was actively covering up the virus and censoring information about it, Tedros lavished praise on Xi Jinping’s response as “transparent,” “responsible,” and “setting a new standard of the world.” Even as international pressure grew, he delayed declaring the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. When the declaration was finally made on January 30, 2020, he was careful to say that, it was “not a vote of no confidence in China. On the contrary, WHO continues to have the confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak.”
Days later, at a time when China had reported 361 deaths from the virus — and when, we know now, the actual number of Chinese deaths was actually much higher — Tedros, echoing the Chinese government’s stance, remained adamantly opposed to restrictions that would “unnecessarily interfere with international trade and travel” in an effort to stop the pandemic’s spread. Until at least as late as February 29, shortly before the extent of the pandemic’s global reach and threat began to become clear, WHO was still officially opposed to such restrictions. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in turn, was all too happy to criticize the United States and other countries that had imposed early travel restrictions on China as having “violated the WHO’s advice.”
Meanwhile, plenty of countries believed the CCP and Tedros’s WHO, and chose not to implement necessary border controls against the epidemic. As a result, the virus began to spread from country to country across the globe, until even those nations that had tried to restrict travel from affected areas early on were powerless to stop it from invading their shores.
What makes all of this even less forgivable is that the Tedros-led WHO was informed of the truth about the virus at a time when life-saving action could have been taken, and chose to ignore it. On December 31, 2019, scientists in Taiwan, which continues to be excluded from the WHO due to Chinese pressure, notified WHO officials of evidence of “human-to-human” transmission, but the officials did not pass on this information to other countries. (Ironically, Taiwan, forced to deal with the threat without any help from the WHO, fared better than many other countries in the end, because its natural distrust of the CCP meant it was not fooled by Beijing’s efforts to downplay the outbreak’s seriousness.)
For as long as he could, Tedros ignored Taiwan’s warnings and validated China’s grossly negligent lies. But when the world finally began to awaken to the threat of COVID-19, Tedros almost immediately began blaming the international community for its earlier inaction. On March 11, 2020, as the WHO declared that the coronavirus had become a global pandemic, Tedros had the gall to say that “some countries are struggling with a lack of resolve,” that the WHO was “deeply concerned . . . by the alarming levels of inaction,” and that “some countries are not approaching this threat with the level of political commitment needed to control it.”
There is a lesson to be learned from WHO’s response to this global crisis, and it concerns the corruption of international institutions by authoritarian regimes. Tedros favors dictators because he is favored by them, and vice-versa. His candidacy for director-general of the WHO was endorsed by health ministers from Algeria and numerous other nondemocratic countries. The World Health Assembly approved him for the post with an overwhelming 133 votes out of 185, despite strong opposition from many Ethiopians who knew his derisory domestic record. China was a major backer of Tedros’s candidacy, as was his own TPLF party, which spent millions of dollars on his campaign.
Not surprisingly, Tedros’s record at the WHO has been one of whitewashing and coddling dictatorships. On October 18, 2017, only three months into his tenure as director-general, Tedros appointed Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, one of the longest-ruling and most brutal dictators on the planet, to serve as a WHO goodwill ambassador focused on tackling non-communicable diseases in Africa. “I am honored to be joined by President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies to provide healthcare to all,” he said at a conference in Uruguay announcing the decision. (After the appointment was widely condemned by influential leaders in the health sector, politicians, and human-rights defenders, he eventually rescinded it.)
Of course, one need not even mention Tedros’s general affinity for dictators to explain his direction of the WHO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The CCP and Tedros clearly enjoy a reciprocal relationship, one based on material interests as well as common values. The CCP donated generously to Ethiopia while Tedros was the Ethiopian foreign minister, and provided forceful backing of his campaign to lead the WHO. In response to the widespread criticism of the organization’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese state-run media outlets have vigorously defended Tedros, claiming he is being “attacked by the West” for “helping us.”
The ultimate, primary responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic lies with CCP authorities, who concealed the outbreak from the beginning and suppressed the spread of accurate information about it. But Tedros also bears significant responsibility for aiding and abetting the CCP’s coverup. He is a living testament to the success of Beijing’s aggressive efforts to coopt international institutions to its will, efforts that must be stopped sooner rather than later. And his actions have endangered hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives across the globe. The free citizens and governments of the world should not rest until he is removed from his post atop the WHO.
Jianli Yang is the founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China. Aaron Rhodes is the president of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe, the human-rights editor of Dissident magazine, and the author of The Debasement of Human Rights.

More from National Review

Ukraine court rejects Chinese appeal in aerospace deal opposed by Washington


World

Ukraine court rejects Chinese appeal in aerospace deal opposed by Washington


By Natalia Zinets
Reuters
By Natalia Zinets
KIEV (Reuters) - A Kiev court has rejected an appeal by Chinese investors to unfreeze the shares of a Ukrainian aircraft engine maker, a setback for the Chinese company that has sought to acquire the Ukrainian firm in a deal opposed by the United States.
China's Skyrizon Aircraft Holdings Limited bought a majority stake in the aircraft engine maker Motor Sich, but the shares were frozen in 2017 pending an investigation by Ukraine's security service (SBU). Washington wants the deal scrapped.
The United States and China have competed for influence in Ukraine since its relations with Moscow soured when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014.
In its ruling, the court kept the shares frozen, citing the SBU probe into whether selling Motor Sich sabotages national security by allowing sensitive technology into foreign hands. The ruling was dated March 13, shared with the parties this week and reviewed by Reuters on Friday.
Skyrizon plans further appeals, said a lawyer involved in the case, speaking anonymously due to the political sensitivity of the case. Zelenskiy's office, the U.S. embassy and the Chinese embassy did not respond to a request for comment. Motor Sich and the SBU declined comment.
Motor Sich severed ties with Russia, its biggest client, after the annexation of Crimea. The wrangle over its future has held up efforts to find new markets, and supporters of a quick resolution say it is now operating at less than half capacity.
"Motor Sich has become a hostage to the geopolitical situation," former Prime Minister Anatoliy Kinakh, chairman of an industrial union which has called for the government to resolve the dispute quickly, told Reuters.
The state's anti-monopoly committee has launched its own investigation and says it is waiting to receive more documents before deciding whether to sanction the sale.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's administration has had to balance strengthening ties to Beijing with keeping the United States, its biggest military aid donor, onside. In recent weeks, Beijing and Washington have both offered aid to Ukraine to fight the coronavirus.
At the moment it is a very difficult task when we have the biggest powers in the world and their interests are in conflict in Ukraine," Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former top security official under Zelenskiy, told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Ilya Zhegulev; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Peter Graff)

U.S.'s Pompeo: Nations should rethink use of China's Huawei amid coronavirus


World

U.S.'s Pompeo: Nations should rethink use of China's Huawei amid coronavirus

Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said China's role in the global coronavirus pandemic is likely to force countries to rethink their telecommunications infrastructure, including the adoption of China-based Huawei's 5G networks.
Asked about use of Huawei and 5G, Pompeo told Fox Business Network in an interview: "I am very confident that this moment -- this moment where the Chinese Communist Party failed to be transparent and open and handle data in an appropriate way -- will cause many, many countries rethink what they were doing with respect to their telecom architecture."
"And when Huawei comes knocking to sell them equipment and hardware, that they will have a different prism through which to view that decision."

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Toby Chopra)
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump leads daily coronavirus response briefing at the White House in Washington

Thứ Sáu, 17 tháng 4, 2020

Navy Believes Delivery Flights, Not Vietnam Port Stop, Brought Virus to Carrier


Military.com

Navy Believes Delivery Flights, Not Vietnam Port Stop, Brought Virus to Carrier

Gina Harkins
Military.com
Navy officials say they've been unable to make a definitive link between hundreds of coronavirus cases on an aircraft carrier and a controversial port call in Vietnam, leading them to consider the possibility that pilots delivering goods to the ship carried it aboard.
Carrier onboard deliveries, known as CODs, could be to blame for the ongoing health crisis onboard the carrier Theodore Roosevelt, a Navy official told Military.com. The flights in question could have originated in the Philippines or Japan as the carrier operated in the Asia-Pacific region, the official said.
When the first coronavirus cases among the crew were announced late last month, questions were raised about the decision to have the ship make a planned stop in Vietnam in early March. But the sailors got sick with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, 15 days after it left the country, the official said.
The incubation period for COVID-19 is believed to span between two and 14 days.
"It's not conclusive, and it's very hard to tell if we're going to be able to get to a conclusive, 'This is where it came from,'" the Navy official said. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the Navy was considering CODs as a possible explanation behind the outbreak.
Related: Could Fired Navy Captain Face Charges? Military Justice Experts Weigh In
CODs bring mail, replacement parts and other supplies out to carriers from ashore almost daily. The Navy uses C2A Greyhound twin-engine cargo planes and CMV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft for the mission.
The aircraft typically board the carriers at the start of a deployment, but leave once land is in range. There, they set up at the nearest large airport and commence shuttle runs, the Smithsonian's Air and Space magazine described in a feature on their missions.
The Navy has faced criticism over the decision to have the Roosevelt stop in Vietnam in early March as coronavirus cases spread throughout the region. President Donald Trump was one who questioned the decision, blaming the ship's former commanding officer, Capt. Brett Crozier.
"Perhaps you don't do that in the middle of a pandemic or something that looked like it was going to be," Trump said. "History says you don't necessarily stop and let your sailors get off."
But the call was made by two admirals in coordination with several other government agencies. Adm. John Aquilino, head of Pacific fleet, recommended the port visit occur as scheduled, and Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, approved it, said Cmdr. J. Myers Vasquez, a Pacific Fleet spokesman.
"This decision was made after a thorough assessment in coordination with Department of State, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Pacific Fleet, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense, U.S. Embassy in Vietnam, and associated health experts," he added.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday has called the decision "a risk-informed" one and said there were just 16 COVID-19 cases in Vietnam at the time, and they were isolated in Hanoi.
The guided-missile cruiser Bunker Hill, which stopped in Vietnam with the Roosevelt, hasn't reported any COVID-19 cases, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this week.
Vasquez said the crews got a brief from medical personnel on coronavirus prevention. And when two British people tested positive for the illness at a hotel that dozens of sailors had visited, those personnel were tested for COVID-19 and placed into quarantine for 14 days, he said.
None of those personnel were among the first three Roosevelt crew members to test positive for COVID-19, Vasquez added.
Both ships left Vietnam on March 9. The first three Roosevelt sailors to have flu-like symptoms and test positive for COVID-19 did so on March 24 -- 15 days after they left, Vasquez said.
"Theodore Roosevelt medical representatives conducted a thorough contact tracing to determine who these individuals came in contact with in an attempt to identify the origin of the infection," he added. "Since 14 days had passed, ship's medical was unable to determine the specific source."
Other carriers have adjusted their flight operations to prevent pilots and crews from infecting any sailors onboard, Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, commander of Carrier Strike Group 8, told reporters this week.
The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group left the Middle East and was scheduled to head back to the East Coast. Now it'll continue operating at sea.
The crew is COVID-19-free, and the Navy needs to have a healthy strike group at the ready, as the Roosevelt has been sidelined in Guam for nearly a month now.
Deliveries bound for the strike group spend enough time aboard supply ships that any possible infected residue dies off before it's delivered, Loiselle said. And if helicopters or planes that take the supplies onto the Truman, those inside aren't allowed to step foot onto the ship.
"We gave them a box lunch and sent them on their way," Loiselle said.
-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.
Read More: Navy Cancels Carrier Homecoming Plans Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Thứ Năm, 16 tháng 4, 2020

Người Lính Không Bao Giờ Chết Sáng tác: Nhạc sĩ Dzuy Lynh Trình bày Võ Thu Nga

Người Lính Không Bao Giờ Chết

 Sáng tác: Nhạc sĩ Dzuy Lynh Trình bày Võ Thu Nga Re-edited and sync’ed by Hoàng Hoa www.saigonfilms.com Refer to Source: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuTezCq5hX4


Không phải phȇ bình mà mở cuộc điều tra WHO.



WHO đã chứng tỏ sự thiếu tin cậy trong thông tin về dịch bệnh coronavirus. Số tiền gần 500 triệu đô la hằng năm của người dân Hoa Kỳ đóng thuế cho đất nước được dùng tài trợ cho WHO cần phải được cân nhắc hay ngừng lại nếu WHO không đem lại lợi ích cho người dân Hoa Kỳ. Vấn đề WHO tương tự vấn đề Khí Hậu, mọi quốc gia cần đóng góp tiền cho Chính Sách Khí Hậu nếu họ thật sự quan tâm. Tất cả các quốc gia trȇn thế giới cần phải tích cực đóng góp tài chính cho WHO một cách công bằng. Trung cộng không thể chỉ đóng góp 40 triệu đô la một năm so với Hoa Kỳ gần 500 triệu đô la năm. Hoa Kỳ không thể từ bi rộng lượng cho những ai lợi dụng sự rộng lượng đó làm những việc không có lợi ích thiết thực cho người dân Hoa Kỳ.
Không phải phȇ bình mà mở cuộc điều tra WHO và Hoa Kỳ có thể rút ra bỏ WHO như rút ra khỏi Hiệp ước Khí Hậu.

Politics

Defeat virus first, criticise later, WHO envoy says after U.S. funding halt


By Alexander Cornwell
Reuters
By Alexander Cornwell
DUBAI (Reuters) - The World Health Organization’s COVID-19 special envoy on Wednesday urged countries to focus on defeating the deadly virus after the United States halted funding to the WHO over its handling of the global pandemic.
President Donald Trump, who has become increasingly hostile towards the WHO, on Tuesday announced the United States would cut off funding the Geneva-based organisation, prompting condemnation from infectious disease experts.
“There are one or two countries that seem to be quite concerned about actions that were taken early on in the pandemic...We say to everybody, we plead with everybody, look forward. Focus on the epic struggle right now and leave the recriminations until later,” special envoy David Nabarro told an online conference, without naming the United States or Trump.
"If in the process you decide you want to declare that you’re going to withdraw funding or make other comments about the WHO, remember this is not just the WHO, this is the whole public health community that is involved right now and every single person in the world...is sacrificing."
The United States contributed more than $400 million to the WHO in 2019, roughly 15% of its budget and its biggest overall donor.
Trump has said the WHO failed to act on credible reports from sources in China's Wuhan province, where the virus was first identified in December, that conflicted with Beijing's account of the spread.
Nabarro, who served as the United Nations special envoy on Ebola, warned countries against complacency in tackling the virus which has infected some 2,001,548 people globally and killed at least 131,101, according to a Reuters tally.
"Respond rapidly, respond robustly and then you will be able to contain this virus and hold it at bay," he said.
"If we argue about it, we will get into trouble. The virus will find its way between us and will catch us out and we will be asking ourselves why on earth didn't we move more quickly. Why on earth didn't we develop a unified strategic approach."

(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Toby Chopra and Mark Heinrich)

Nabarro candidate for Director General of the WHO attends a news conference in Geneva

Thứ Tư, 15 tháng 4, 2020

Xin Ðời Một Nụ Cười - Tác giả Nam Lộc – Trình bày Hạ Vân 2008

Xin Ðời Một Nụ Cười 

Tác giả Nam Lộc – Trình bày Hạ Vân 2008



Secretary Mike Pompeo: We need answers and transparency from China and for WHO to do its job

Cần nȇn có một cuộc điều tra tìm hiểu về nguồn gốc coronavirus tại Vũ Hán (Wuhan) và về những gì xãy ra tại đây mà Trung Cộng chưa bao giờ nói thật với thế giới. WHO đã tiếp tay cho sự thiếu trong sáng này. WHO đã làm gì cho Sức Khoẻ Thế Giới? WHO đã làm gì ích lợi cho sức khoẻ thế giới và nước Mỹ với gần 500 triệu đô la mỗi năm từ tiền thuế mà người dân Mỹ đóng. Ngừng tài trợ cho WHO sẽ không gây phương hại gì cho nước Mỹ. Công bằng, tất cả các quốc gia trȇn thế giới cần bỏ tiền túi ra tài trợ WHO. Vấn đề WHO hôm nay cho thấy nước Mỹ, giống như một anh chàng hào hiệp, đã chi phí quá tốn kém cho những thứ không cần thiết, nhưng khi anh ngã ngựa, chính những kẻ mà anh đã hào hiệp giúp đỡ sẽ phản bội.
-----
FOX News Videos

Secretary Mike Pompeo: We need answers and transparency from China and for WHO to do its job




https://www.yahoo.com/news/secretary-mike-pompeo-answers-transparency-014143524.html

 

Trump announces 'halt' in US funding to World Health Organization amid coronavirus pandemic

 USA TODAY

Trump announces 'halt' in US funding to World Health Organization amid coronavirus pandemic

John Fritze, USA TODAY
USA TODAY


WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Tuesday his administration will "halt" U.S. funding to the World Health Organization as it conducts a review of the global organization's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. 
 President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Monday, April 6, 2020, in Washington.
“We have deep concerns about whether America's generosity has been put to the best use possible,” the president said in a Rose Garden press conference. “The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion."
Trump has accused the organization of not moving quickly enough to sound the alarm over COVID-19 and of being too China friendly. He has attacked the agency for advising the U.S. against banning travel from China to other parts of the world amid the outbreak.
"And the World – WHO – World Health got it wrong," the president told reporters at the White House last week. "I mean, they got it very wrong. In many ways, they were wrong. They also minimized the threat very strongly and – not good."
Trump has previously said he was considering cutting WHO funding, but on Tuesday he accused the organization of  "severely mismanaging and covering up" the spread of the coronavirus after the initial outbreak in Wuhan,China. 
The U.S. paid $893 million to the WHO during its two-year budget window, according to the organization's website. That money represents about 15% of the WHO's budget.  
Established in 1948, the WHO is an autonomous organization that works with the United Nations and is considered part of the U.N. system. 
During Tuesday's briefing, the president asked whether it was appropriate to freeze WHO's funding in the middle of a pandemic that has claimed more than 125,000 lives worldwide with over 2 million cases confirmed, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
"This is an evaluation period, but in the meantime, we're putting a hold on all funds going to World Health," Trump said. 
Trump said the review would last between 60 and 90 days. He said the administration would "channel" the money into other areas to combat the coronavirus outbreak, but declined to provide any specifics. 
The American Medical Association was quick to criticize the president's move and urged him to reconsider his decision. 
"During the worst public health crisis in a century, halting funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) is a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier," AMA President Patrice A. Harris said in a statement. 
Harris added that battling a pandemic requires international cooperation and data. 
"Cutting funding to the WHO - rather than focusing on solutions - is a dangerous move at a precarious moment for the world," she said. 
Leslie Dach, chair of the pro-Obamacare group Protect Our Care and the former global Ebola coordinator for the Department of Health and Human Services, called the decision an attempt to shift blame for the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. 
"This is nothing more than a transparent attempt by President Trump to distract from his history downplaying the severity of the coronavirus crisis and his administration’s failure to prepare our nation," she said. "To be sure, the World Health Organization is not without fault but it is beyond irresponsible to cut its funding at the height of a global pandemic. This move will undoubtedly make Americans less safe."

President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Monday, April 6, 2020, in Washington.
Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: Trump will 'halt' funding to World Health Organization