Bhutan king braves leeches and snakes to keep Covid fatalities low
King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck takes his lunch at a remote village in Tempaling last month. (AP pic)
KATHMANDU: Wearing a baseball cap and knee-length traditional Gho robe, carrying a backpack, Bhutan’s king has walked through jungles infested with leeches and snakes, trekked mountains and quarantined several times in a hotel in the capital.
For 14 months, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, has been travelling by foot, car and horse to remote hamlets to oversee measures to protect his tiny kingdom of 700,000 from the coronavirus outbreak that has flared up in neighbouring India.
The impact of the 41-year-old king’s excursions is evident in a Covid-19 death toll of just one for the nation nestled between India and China in the Eastern Himalayas.
“When the king travels for miles and knocks… to alert people about the pandemic, then his humble words are respected and taken very seriously,” said Lotay Tshering, the country’s prime minister.
“His Majesty’s presence is far more powerful than just issuing public guidelines,” Tshering told Reuters. His presence assures people they are not alone in their fight against the pandemic, the prime minister said.
Tshering, a practising urologist, often accompanies the Oxford-educated king for trips near the porous border shared with India, where a second wave of the pandemic more than doubled the death toll over the last two months.
Bhutan became a constitutional monarchy in 2008 when the king relinquished his absolute powers. But loyalty to the royal family still dominates the nation’s socio-political landscape.
In recent weeks, the king walked for five days on a trail passing through elevations of up to 4,343m to thank primary health workers in remote areas.
The king’s office declined a request for an interview but his social media pages on Instagram and Facebook showcase his work and travels during the pandemic.
“Our king’s biggest fear is that if the pandemic spreads like a forest fire then our (nation) could be wiped out,” said a senior palace official.
A father of two boys, after every trip the king checks into a hotel in capital Thimphu to follow quarantine protocols. Like most of his subjects, he has received one vaccination dose.
“(The king) has been to all high-risk border areas time and again to monitor every measure put in place and to ensure best practices are followed within limited resources,” said Rui Paulo de Jesus, the World Health Organization representative in Bhutan.
Bhutan, an ancient kingdom sealed off to foreigners until the 1970s, has just one doctor available for every 2,000 people.
The borders of the scenic nation are now shut again and domestic lockdowns have been imposed in some areas, while screening and testing for Covid-19 have been stepped up.
Prime Minister Tshering has said Bhutan is looking to mix-and-match vaccine doses because after inoculating 90% of its eligible population with their first dose of the AstraZeneca shot, the nation ran out of supplies.
The deadline to administer the second dose after a gap of 12 weeks is this month, and the government is seeking other supplies to deal with the shortage.
For 14 months, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, has been travelling by foot, car and horse to remote hamlets to oversee measures to protect his tiny kingdom of 700,000 from the coronavirus outbreak that has flared up in neighbouring India.
The impact of the 41-year-old king’s excursions is evident in a Covid-19 death toll of just one for the nation nestled between India and China in the Eastern Himalayas.
“When the king travels for miles and knocks… to alert people about the pandemic, then his humble words are respected and taken very seriously,” said Lotay Tshering, the country’s prime minister.
“His Majesty’s presence is far more powerful than just issuing public guidelines,” Tshering told Reuters. His presence assures people they are not alone in their fight against the pandemic, the prime minister said.
Tshering, a practising urologist, often accompanies the Oxford-educated king for trips near the porous border shared with India, where a second wave of the pandemic more than doubled the death toll over the last two months.
Bhutan became a constitutional monarchy in 2008 when the king relinquished his absolute powers. But loyalty to the royal family still dominates the nation’s socio-political landscape.
In recent weeks, the king walked for five days on a trail passing through elevations of up to 4,343m to thank primary health workers in remote areas.
The king’s office declined a request for an interview but his social media pages on Instagram and Facebook showcase his work and travels during the pandemic.
“Our king’s biggest fear is that if the pandemic spreads like a forest fire then our (nation) could be wiped out,” said a senior palace official.
A father of two boys, after every trip the king checks into a hotel in capital Thimphu to follow quarantine protocols. Like most of his subjects, he has received one vaccination dose.
“(The king) has been to all high-risk border areas time and again to monitor every measure put in place and to ensure best practices are followed within limited resources,” said Rui Paulo de Jesus, the World Health Organization representative in Bhutan.
Bhutan, an ancient kingdom sealed off to foreigners until the 1970s, has just one doctor available for every 2,000 people.
The borders of the scenic nation are now shut again and domestic lockdowns have been imposed in some areas, while screening and testing for Covid-19 have been stepped up.
Prime Minister Tshering has said Bhutan is looking to mix-and-match vaccine doses because after inoculating 90% of its eligible population with their first dose of the AstraZeneca shot, the nation ran out of supplies.
The deadline to administer the second dose after a gap of 12 weeks is this month, and the government is seeking other supplies to deal with the shortage.
*********
kt notes:
Bhutan is just the ideal candidate for a generous donation of 1-million-dosage of AstraZeneca anti-Covid vaccine from Japan who has, as Reuters reported, just gifted 6 million such dosages of AstraZeneca to Taiwan and SE Asia:
120 million minus 6 million means Japan still has 114 million dosages left, more than enough to flood the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan ...
... but alas, WTF can teeny weeny puny Bhutan do for Japan (and the USA) in its (their) Cold War fight against China when it lies helplessly next to China?
Sigh ...
Sorry your Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, there ain't no free Japanese bento-box.
pity bhutan no dage
ReplyDeleteF*cked rant of know-nothingness!
DeleteIndia is the self-proclaimed dage of Bhutan by virtual of the aneh-ised might.
Pygmies acting all powerful & yet just the in the same mold of those Formosa katak.
self proclaim? like ccp towards twn?
DeleteU DON'T know!
DeleteThen what's that fart about Formosa?
Taiwan has been a Chinese territory since eons ago. How is that to be compared with Bhutan under India?
Oooop… under that fart filled well, this different is not understood by the katak!
There ain't no free CCP dim-sum.
ReplyDeleteThose countries that thinking there is chain-free CCP Dim-sum are deluding themselves.
Pity Bhutan, having to choose what poison to take.
Same same all-over the world!
DeleteIncluding those at yr own backyard.
Open your eyes and mind and see the real China. Your knowledge of China is really outdated. There is freedom in China, more importantly feeling of safety, keep on improving living standard and not without freedom of speech as you always falsely alleged :
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcScSCTgbM
China is not a slave country as you always imagine. Open up your eyes and mind, don't let it stays like a blocked sewer. There is freedom in China like your over rated democracy :
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6jBayUuB4A
zombie right vs human right, very odd a msian dun know the diff.
DeleteKatak under that fart filled well know?
DeleteMmmm… perhaps this 犬养mfer should reeducate it's Formosa peers about mati katak & along with the definition of zombie!
Who BULLY and RAMPAS territory from Bhutan? Japon?
ReplyDeleteBy some accounts Bullyland is claiming up to 12% of Bhutan's territory. They don't even have an embassy in Bhutan or donate any vaksin.
QUOTE
China accused of Bhutan land grab
Stealthily but steadily, Beijing is reportedly building whole towns across internationally recognised borders in a new and dangerous global power play.
MAY 23, 2021
...China has quietly been invading its Himalayan neighbour for years.
A paper published by journal Foreign Policy stated China has built an entire town, replete with roads, a power plant, two CPC buildings, a communications base, military and police outposts and a warehouse, almost 8 kilometres into Bhutan.
What Beijing has already done in the South China Sea – building outposts and claiming dubious sovereignty – is now also being done in the Himalayas, according to reports.
With a population of just 800,000 compared to China’s 1.4 billion, “there is little Bhutan can do” but watch as Beijing takes large gulps of its territory, the paper states.
What’s worse for Bhutan is that it isn’t even the real target for Beijing. Rather, it’s become caught in a geopolitical sparring match.
“This involves a strategy that is more provocative than anything China has done on its land borders in the past,” wrote Robert Barnett in Foreign Policy earlier this month.
“The settlement of an entire area within another country goes far beyond the forward patrolling and occasional road-building.”
Chinese town that appeared 8kms into Bhutan.
The Kingdom of Bhutan lies entirely within the southern slopes of the Himalayas. To the south is the vast expanse of India and to the north, over the mountain peaks, the even vaster expanse of China.
The largely Buddhist Bhutanese have much in common with the people of Tibet which now lies within China. But diplomatically and economically, the government in Thimphu has closer links to India. Beijing doesn’t even have an embassy in Bhutan.
That Bhutan and China can’t agree where their 470km common border lies is nothing new. By some accounts Beijing claims 12 per cent of the territory governed by Thimphu. The recent meeting in Kunming was the 25th the two nations have held concerning the frontier.
UNQUOTE
Stop propagating lies against China man, don't act like a fool, read this :
Deletehttps://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/bhutan-reports-land-grab-chinese-doklam-reject-1742601-2020-11-20
Wakakakakaka…
DeleteDo u know that Bhutan is a forced vassal state of India?
Might be u don't even realize this c&p diarrhea is from an aneh-ised mouthpiece!
Stop propagating evil lies against China. Don't be a fool, read this :
Deletehttps://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/bhutan-reports-land-grab-chinese-doklam-reject-1742601-2020-11-20
QUOTE
NHUTAN REJECTS REPORTS OF LAND GRAB BY CHINESE IN DOKLAM
Amid reports of the Chinese having established villages inside Bhutanese territory in Doklam, Bhutan’s Ambassador to India has said there is been no such village inside Bhutan.
Bhutan has rejected reports of the Chinese having established villages inside Bhutanese territory in Doklam.
Bhutan's envoy to India, Maj Gen Vetsop Namgyel, told India Today, "There is no Chinese village inside Bhutan."
UNQUOTE
Here is the second part of the link that was conveniently left out. Even CGTN, the official Bullyland news line, boasts occupying Bhutan territory.
DeleteQUOTE (omitted)
…….The news spread on social media after a Chinese journalist from state-affiliated media, Shen Shiwi, posted pictures of a village with satellite imagery, claiming that it was near Doklam.
He later deleted the tweet when it was widely picked up on social media and it was pointed out that the place pointed out by Shen Shiwi was well within Bhutanese territory.
Nathan Ruser tweeted, “Here's a CGTN news producer openly admitting that China has occupied and now populated part of a sovereign country. This Pangda village has been constructed (as shown by the included map) ~2.5km beyond Bhutan's international border. China now baselessly claims about 12% of Bhutan. twitter.com/shen_shiwei/st”
He adds, “If you look at the map Shen shares, he cheekily crops so that it doesn't show the settlement he's talking about is across the Bhutanese border. Second picture shows the border.”
While the controversy has escalated, Shen’s deleted tweet is still on social media as a screenshot.
UNQUOTE
Nathan Ruser!
DeleteASPI!
Sound familiar.
The same outfit, funded by uncle Sam (mm… oz think-tank using foreign money!) to propagate lies about Xinjiang & Tibet!
Ooop… talk about PS pictures - don't forget those masterly crafted Xinjiang concentration camps (using US maximum security jail as backstop) parading to the world by ASPI!
Truly f*cked propaganda of the blurred kind.
By virtual of the fact that Bhutan is military covered high & low by the Indian arm forces, how could China now baselessly claims about 12% of Bhutan?
Vis-a-vis the recent military skirmishes at the 2020 Galwan Valley high in the mountain!
If the story is truth, then Indians would have run amok for losing 12% of their 'territory' right under the watch of Indian army!
Blurred mfer, do continue with yr syiok-sendiri c&p fart. U need it to sustain yr daily dose of fun.
Wakakaka, read the whole article to interpret the story. Use common sense, you mean Bhutan's envoy to India, Maj Gen Vetsop Namgyel, is covering up for China ??? Let's do a deal, if you are right then I will say I am sorry, you are right okay. But if I am right, will you reciprocate? Wakakakaka
DeleteBullyland RAMPASING Bhutan territory with no vaksin donation in sight.
ReplyDeleteQUOTE
‘Friendly neighbours’ no more? China is slowly cutting off parts of Bhutan
ROBERT BARNETT, FOREIGN POLICY MAY 10, 2021
In October 2015, China announced that a new village, called Gyalaphug in Tibetan or Jieluobu in Chinese, had been established in the south of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). In April 2020, the Communist Party secretary of the TAR, Wu Yingjie, travelled across two passes, both more than 14,000 feet high, on his way to visit the new village. There he told the residents — all of them Tibetans — to “put down roots like Kalsang flowers in the borderland of snows” and to “raise the bright five-star red flag high”.
Film of the visit was broadcast on local TV channels and plastered on the front pages of Tibetan newspapers. It was not reported outside China: hundreds of new villages are being built in Tibet, and this one seemed no different.
Gyalaphug is, however, different: it is in Bhutan. Wu and a retinue of officials, police, and journalists had crossed an international border. They were in a 232-square-mile area claimed by China since the early 1980s but internationally understood as part of Lhuntse district in northern Bhutan. The Chinese officials were visiting to celebrate their success, unnoticed by the world, in planting settlers, security personnel, and military infrastructure within territory internationally and historically understood to be Bhutanese.
This new construction is part of a major drive by Chinese President Xi Jinping since 2017 to fortify the Tibetan borderlands, a dramatic escalation in China’s long-running efforts to outmaneuver India and its neighbours along their Himalayan frontiers. In this case, China doesn’t need the land it is settling in Bhutan: its aim is to force the Bhutanese government to cede territory that China wants elsewhere in Bhutan to give Beijing a military advantage in its struggle with New Delhi.
Gyalaphug is now one of three new villages (two already occupied, one under construction), 66 miles of new roads, a small hydropower station, two Communist Party administrative centres, a communications base, a disaster relief warehouse, five military or police outposts, and what are believed to be a major signals tower, a satellite receiving station, a military base, and up to six security sites and outposts that China has constructed in what it says are parts of Lhodrak in the TAR but which in fact are in the far north of Bhutan.
This involves a strategy that is more provocative than anything China has done on its land borders in the past. The settlement of an entire area within another country goes far beyond the forward patrolling and occasional road-building that led to war with India in 1962, military clashes in 1967 and 1987, and the deaths of 24 Chinese and Indian soldiers in 2020. In addition, it openly violates the terms of China’s founding treaty with Bhutan. It also ignores decades of protests to Beijing by the Bhutanese about far smaller infractions elsewhere on the borders.
By mirroring in the Himalayas the provocative tactics it has used in the South China Sea, Beijing is risking its relations with its neighbors, whose needs and interests it has always claimed to respect, and jeopardising its reputation worldwide.
China’s multilevel construction drive within Bhutan has gone almost completely unnoticed by the outside world. Bhutan must know, and other governments in the region are likely to be aware, that China is active on Bhutan’s northern borders, but may not have realised the full extent of that activity or have chosen to remain silent. Yet information on the drive has been hiding in plain sight in official Tibetan- and Chinese-language newspaper reports published in China, on Chinese social media, and in Chinese government documents. There is one catch to these Chinese reports: they never mention that this construction work, confirmed by satellite imagery, is taking place in disputed territory, let alone in Bhutan.
UNQUOTE
Wakakakakaka…
DeleteRobert Barnett!
The usual Xinjiang/Tibet sopo group of 'experts/scholars'!
Should have gotten him to join forces with adrian zenz to paint a bigger Xinjiang/Tibet picture under China control!
Fund is starting to flow after trump shutting down these ngo fund for China bashing!
No Bullyshit. Chairman Mao’s Five Fingers of Tibet.
ReplyDeleteToday part of Xi’s Belt You Down My Road Policy.
QUOTE
Five Fingers of Tibet
The Five Fingers of Tibet (Chinese: 西藏的五指) is a Chinese foreign policy attributed to Mao Zedong that considers Tibet to be China's right hand palm, with five fingers on its periphery: Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Arunachal Pradesh, and that it is China's responsibility to "liberate" these regions. It was never discussed in official Chinese public statements, but external concerns have been raised over its possible continued existence or revival. An article in a provisional mouthpiece magazine of the Chinese Communist Party verified the existence of this policy in the aftermath of the 2017 China–India border standoff.
UNQUOTE
Mmmm…
Delete"Belt You Down My Road Policy"!!!
Must be doing something very right such that the G7 has to imitate a similar plan.
Wakakakakaka…
Blurred mfering fart of know-nothingness.
Size of Bullyland = 9,600,000 sqkm
ReplyDeleteSize of Bhutan = 38,000 sqkm
250 times bigger. Real Bully Lah.
Like Israel is 0.5% the size of surrounding Arab countries but Hamas want to wipe them off the face of the earth.
Wakakakakaka…
DeleteWhat's the size of india?
3.287M km²
86.5 times!
Yet diex2 must have Bhutan as it's vassal state for a show of aneh-ised might.
Xinjiang = 1.7 million sqkm
DeleteTibet = 1.2 million sqkm
Inner Mongolia = 1.2 million sqkm
Total RAMPAS = 4.1 million sqkm
Meaning Bullyland already RAMPAS territory the size much bigger than India.
Now going after Southern Sea = 3.5 million.
don't forget how India swallowed up the Buddhist Kingdom of Sikkim
DeleteTIPU.
DeleteYindia did not RAMPAS Sikkim. It was integrated via a referendum. Just like Sabah and Sarawak voted to cantum with Semenanjung.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Sikkimese_monarchy_referendum
QUOTE
A referendum on abolishing the monarchy was held in the Kingdom of Sikkim on 14 April 1975. It was approved by 97.55% of voters, and resulted in the country becoming an Indian state.
UNQUOTE
Indira Gandhi, unlike her father, was impatient with an autonomous Sikkim. On 9 April Indian troops entered Sikkim, disarmed the Sikkim palace guard (killing one of them and injuring four others) and surrounded the palace, putting the king under house-arrest. The next day the Sikkimese Parliament with the support of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (wakakaka), unanimously voted to abolish the monarchy and merge with India in order to obtain full Indian statehood. A referendum on this issue was set for 14 April.
Delete'Ni bukan rampas kah, using a faux referendum as a kerbau tool
Yes, sounds similar to Bullyland troops invading Dalai Lama's palace, under the guise of "Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" but with Guns, so same same...both oso RAMPAS, I stand corrected.
DeleteU stand correct?
DeletePLA invading DalaiLama's palace?
Where did u read that piece of his-story?
In yr most erotic wet dream!
The liberation of Tibet started with The Battle of Chamdo (昌都战役) occurred from 6 to 19 October 1950. It was a military campaign by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to take the Chamdo Region from a renegade independent Tibetan state formed with the hands of the pommie Tibet Frontier Commission after the failed British expedition to Tibet, also known as the British invasion of Tibet or the Younghusband expedition to Tibet began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904.
Tibet then were be ruled by the DalaiLama when the Qing dynasty were too busy fighting internal corruptions & foreign invasions.
The liberation of Tibet did exactly what it meant - releasing Tibet from the manipulation of the Tibet Frontier Commission while also demolished the hateful hereditary 农奴 system enjoyed by the Lama class.
BTW, when did modern battle not using guns?
Did yr auntie pommie conquered India using the sticks (ooop!)?
BTW, blurred c&p mfer, ever hear of shotgun marriage?
DeleteSikkimese monarchy referendum was one to be arranged & commissioned by the pommie, with that aneh-ised groom.
Wakakakakaka… blurred mfer having wet dream again.
DeleteWhen did Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia ever exhibited & functioned as truth independent nations?
Perhaps within yr trance induced by those foul gaseous leaking out from that fart filled well.