US 'deeply concerned' about untrackable China ships carrying Iran oil: Officials

Agencies
October 16, 2019

Washington, Oct 16: The White House is warning Chinese shipping companies against turning off their ships’ transponders to hide Iranian oil shipments in violation of US sanctions, two senior administration officials said.

“We’ve been messaging very heavily to the shipping companies, you don’t want to do this, it’s not worth it,” said one official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. “It’s incredibly dangerous and irresponsible behavior.”

China is the largest remaining buyer of Iranian oil after US President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Tehran’s main export. Trump tightened US sanctions in May in an effort to drive Iran’s oil sales to zero.

The sanctions are aimed at quashing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, ballistic missile program and influence in Syria, Iraq and other countries. Its oil exports have fallen to less than 400,000 barrels per day from about 2.5 million bpd.

On September 25, the US imposed sanctions on five Chinese individuals and two Chinese COSCO Shipping Corp subsidiaries, saying they had shipped Iranian crude oil in violation of the sanctions.

Days later, 14 COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian) vessels, about one-third of its fleet, stopped sending location data from their automatic identification system (AIS) between September 30 and October 7, ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.

The administration said on Tuesday it had independently confirmed that COSCO had been shutting off AIS on its ships.

All but three of the ships have become traceable since Reuters’ report ran on October 9. The latest locations for Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) Yuan Shan Hu and Cosglad Lake were still unavailable between October 8 and October 16, while Aframax-sized tanker Yang Mei Hu has been untraceable since October 11, data showed.

COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian) said in an e-mail statement that none of its vessels had turned off their AIS controllers or stopped transmitting AIS signals.

“Dalian Tanker will continue to adhere to applicable laws and regulations in the conduct of its business operations,” the company said.

The International Maritime Organization requires vessels to use transponders for safety and transparency. Crews can turn off the devices if there is a danger of piracy or similar hazards. But transponders are often shut off to conceal a ship’s location during illicit activities.

‘Ship by ship’

It was not clear what the Trump administration could do to stop the tankers from turning off transponders.

It has warned shipping companies, energy companies and port officials to be wary of trade in Iranian oil, in some cases telling them they could face sanctions for doing so.

The administration believes that sanctions are on the verge of causing an economic depression in Iran, one of the officials said.

But Iran has years of experience dealing with sanctions. Some analysts believe Tehran may be attempting to ride out the economic pain until the November 2020 U.S. presidential election, hoping Trump will lose and the next president will take a softer line on Tehran.

“If they calculate that there is going to be (a new president) and they are incorrect, that’s bad,” the second official said. “Because I don’t think anybody thinks that they could make it another four years after next November under this kind of sanctions regime.”

The Trump administration is watching illegal shipments even if it is not able to stop them, the second official said.

“We are literally going ship by ship at this point because each ship is incredibly important” to Iran’s economy, the second official said.

Trump wants initial talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, without preconditions, to see whether there is a chance for a deal to ease tensions between the two countries, one official said. The two leaders did not meet at last month’s UN General Assembly gathering.

The United States said on Friday it was sending about 3,000 additional American military personnel to Saudi Arabia to bolster defenses after attacks on oil facilities last month, which were widely blamed on Iran. Tehran denies any role.

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Agencies
June 24,2020

Washington, Jun 24: Twitter has once again flagged a tweet from US President Donald Trump which promoted violence by saying if protesters tried to set up an "autonomous zone" in Washington, DC they would be met with "serious force".

This is the fourth time Twitter has red flagged Trump's tweet for glorifying violence or violating its policies.

Trump has been critical of the "autonomous zone" in Seattle, an area occupied by protestors for much of this month.

"We've placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behaviour, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group," Twitter's safety team tweeted late Tuesday.

Trump had tweeted: "There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone' in Washington, D.C., as long as I'm your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!"

Twitter earlier labeled a video tweeted by him which mocked CNN as manipulated media.

According to Twitter, "this Tweet has been labeled per our synthetic and manipulated media policy to give people more context".

In May, Twitter labeled two Trump tweets that made false claims about mail-in ballots in California.

Twitter later labeled another Trump tweet glorifying violence in which he said, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Facebook also removed a Trump campaign ad featuring a symbol used by Nazis for political dissenters, saying the ad violated its policies.

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News Network
February 18,2020

Beijing, Feb 18: A hospital director at the epicentre of China's virus epidemic died on Tuesday, state media said, the latest medical worker to fall victim to the new coronavirus spreading across the country.

The COVID-19 virus, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan late last year, has infected more than 72,000 people and killed nearly 1,900.

Liu Zhiming, the director of Wuchang Hospital in Wuhan, died Tuesday morning after "all-out rescue efforts failed," state broadcaster CCTV reported.

China said last week that six medical workers had died from the virus, while 1,716 have been infected.

Liu's death was initially reported by Chinese media and bloggers shortly after midnight on Tuesday -- but the stories were later deleted and replaced with reports that doctors were still trying to save him.

After initial reports of his death were denied, the hospital told AFP on Tuesday morning that doctors were giving him life-saving treatment.

Liu's death has echoes of that of Wuhan ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who had been punished by authorities for sounding the alarm about the virus in late December.

Li's death prompted a national outpouring of grief as well as anger against the authorities, who were accused of mishandling the crisis.

People took to social media to mourn Liu on Tuesday, with many users on the Twitter-like Weibo platform drawing critical comparisons between Liu's death and Li's.

In both cases their deaths were initially reported in state media posts -- later deleted -- and their deaths denied, before being finally confirmed again.

"Has everyone forgotten what happened to Li Wenliang? They forcefully attempted resuscitation after he died," one Weibo commenter wrote.

Another commenter said, Liu "already died last night, (but) some people are addicted to torturing corpses".

A hashtag about Liu's death had 29 million views by Tuesday afternoon.

Doctors in Wuhan face shortages of masks and protective bodysuits, with some even wearing makeshift hazmat suits and continuing to work despite showing respiratory symptoms, health workers have told AFP.

Hubei province and its capital Wuhan have been the hardest hit by the virus, accounting for nearly 1,800 of the deaths from the virus so far.

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News Network
May 19,2020

May 18: Risk managers expect a prolonged global recession as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a report by the World Economic Forum showed on Tuesday.

Two-thirds of the 347 respondents to the survey - carried out in response to the outbreak - put a lengthy contraction in the global economy top of their list of concerns for the next 18 months.

Half of risk managers expected bankruptcies and industry consolidation, the failure of industries to recover and high levels of unemployment, particularly among the young.

“The crisis has devastated lives and livelihoods. It has triggered an economic crisis with far-reaching implications and revealed the inadequacies of the past," said Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum.

Environmental goals risk being discarded as a result of the pandemic, the report said, but governments should try to carve out a "green recovery".

"We now have a unique opportunity to use this crisis to do things differently and build back better economies that are more sustainable, resilient and inclusive," Zahidi said.

The report was compiled by the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Advisory Board together with Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc and Zurich Insurance Group.

Risk managers were surveyed between April 1 and 13.

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