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Varieties

Newspaper Says Video of Prince William, Kate Should Halt Royal Rumor Mill

Commuters walk past copies of the Evening Standard featuring a picture of Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, on the front page at subway station in London, Britain, March 12, 2024. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Commuters walk past copies of the Evening Standard featuring a picture of Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, on the front page at subway station in London, Britain, March 12, 2024. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
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Newspaper Says Video of Prince William, Kate Should Halt Royal Rumor Mill

Commuters walk past copies of the Evening Standard featuring a picture of Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, on the front page at subway station in London, Britain, March 12, 2024. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Commuters walk past copies of the Evening Standard featuring a picture of Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, on the front page at subway station in London, Britain, March 12, 2024. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported — the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
The newspaper published a short clip late Monday that appeared to show William and Kate smiling as they walked together, carrying shopping bags. It said the footage was taken on Saturday in Windsor, west of London.
The Sun quoted Nelson Silva, who said he filmed the video, as saying, “Kate looked happy and relaxed. They look happy just to be able to go to a shop and mingle.”
The couple’s Kensington Palace office did not comment.
The palace has said Kate, 42, will return to official duties after Easter. That's likely to be once her children go back to school on April 17.
The Sun plastered its front page with “Great to see you again, Kate!” It said it had decided to publish the footage “in a bid to bring an end to what the Palace has called the 'madness of social media.'”
Feverish and at times fantastical speculation has swirled about the princess's condition during her absence. The palace has not disclosed details, but said it is not cancer-related.
Kensington Palace released a photo of Kate and her children George, Charlotte and Louis on March 10 to coincide with Mother’s Day in the UK But the move backfire when The Associated Press and other news agencies retracted it from publication because it appeared to have been manipulated, fueling even more conjecture.
Kate issued a statement acknowledging she liked to “experiment with editing” and apologizing for “any confusion” the photo had caused.

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Varieties

Wuhan Keen to Shake off Pandemic Label Five Years On

A man wearing a face mask looks over a barricade set up to keep people out of a residential compound in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 14, 2020. (AFP)
A man wearing a face mask looks over a barricade set up to keep people out of a residential compound in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 14, 2020. (AFP)
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Wuhan Keen to Shake off Pandemic Label Five Years On

A man wearing a face mask looks over a barricade set up to keep people out of a residential compound in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 14, 2020. (AFP)
A man wearing a face mask looks over a barricade set up to keep people out of a residential compound in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on April 14, 2020. (AFP)

Built in just days as Covid-19 cases spiked in Wuhan in early 2020, the Huoshenshan Hospital was once celebrated as a symbol of the Chinese city's fight against the virus that first emerged there.

The hospital now stands empty, hidden behind more recently built walls -- faded like most traces of the pandemic as locals move on and officials discourage discussion of it.

On January 23, 2020, with the then-unknown virus spreading, Wuhan sealed itself off for 76 days, ushering in China's zero-Covid era of strict travel and health controls and foreshadowing the global disruption yet to come.

Today, the city's bustling shopping districts and gridlocked traffic are a far cry from the empty streets and crammed emergency rooms that marked the world's first Covid lockdown.

"People are moving forward, these memories are getting fuzzier and fuzzier," Jack He, a 20-year-old university student and Wuhan local, told AFP.

He was in high school when the lockdown was imposed, and he spent much of his sophomore year taking online classes from home.

"We still feel like those few years were especially tough... but a new life has started," He said.

- Official silence -

At the former site of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where scientists believe the virus may have crossed over from animals to humans, a light blue wall has been built to shield the market's closed-down stalls from view.

When AFP visited, workers were putting up Chinese New Year decorations on the windows of the market's second floor, where a warren of opticians' shops still operates.

There is nothing to mark the location's significance -- in fact, there are no major memorials to the lives lost to the virus anywhere in the city.

Official commemorations of Wuhan's lockdown ordeal focus on the heroism of doctors and the efficiency with which the city responded to the outbreak, despite international criticism of the local government's censorship of early cases in December 2019.

The market's old produce stalls have been moved to a new development outside the city center, where it was clear that the city was still on edge about its reputation as the cradle of the pandemic.

Over a dozen vendors at the aptly named New Huanan Seafood Market refused to speak about the market's past.

The owner of one stall told AFP on condition of anonymity that "business here is not what it was before".

Another worker said the market's managers had sent security camera footage of AFP journalists out to a mass WeChat group of stall owners and warned them against speaking to the reporters.

- 'City of heroes'-

One of the few remaining public commemorations of the lockdown is next door to the abandoned Huoshenshan hospital -- an unassuming petrol station that doubles as an "anti-Covid-19 pandemic educational base".

One wall of the station was dedicated to a timeline of the lockdown, complete with photographs of President Xi Jinping visiting Wuhan in March 2020.

An employee told AFP that a small building behind the facility's convenience store housed another exhibit, but it was only open "when leaders come to visit".

But days before the fifth anniversary of the lockdown, those memories seemed far away, the city now a hive of activity.

Locals thronged the Shanhaiguan Road breakfast market, munching on bowls of noodles and deep-fried pastries.

In the upmarket Chuhe Hanjie shopping street, people walked dogs and promenaded in designer outfits while others queued to pick up bubble tea orders.

Chen Ziyi, a 40-year-old Wuhan local, said she believed the city's increased prominence has actually had a positive impact, with more tourists visiting.

"Now everyone pays more attention to Wuhan," she said. "They say Wuhan is the city of heroes."