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U.S. trade war won’t work, says China

Agencies
August 3, 2018

Beijing, Aug 3: China's top envoy called on the U.S. to remain “cool-headed” on Thursday as Washington threatened to raise the tariff rate on the next $200 billion of Chinese imports.

Slapping additional tariffs on Chinese imports — 60% of which are made by foreign firms, including American companies — will only raise costs for domestic U.S. consumers, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

“We hope that the trade policymakers in the U.S. will be cool-headed and listen to the voice of U.S. consumers... and also pay attention to the voice in the international community,” Mr. Wang said.

“The U.S. has no regard for the world... playing both soft and hard ball with China will not have any effect, and only serve to disappoint the countries and territories opposed to a trade war,” China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement, adding it still hopes to turn the situation around.

President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Trade Representative to consider increasing the proposed tariffs to 25% from the planned 10%, USTR Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday.

‘Harmful behaviour’

“We have been very clear about the specific changes China should undertake. Regrettably, instead of changing its harmful behaviour, China has illegally retaliated against U.S. workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses,” Mr. Lighthizer said.

Officials, however, downplayed suggestions the move was intended to compensate for the recent decline in the value of the Chinese currency, which has threatened to take much of the sting out of Mr. Trump’s tariffs by making imports cheaper.

The U.S. dollar has been strengthening since April as the Central Bank has been raising lending rates, which draws investors looking for higher returns.

Washington and Beijing are locked in battle over American accusations that China’s export economy benefits from unfair policies and subsidies, as well as theft of American technological know-how.

Most exports targeted

Mr. Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on virtually all of China’s exports to the U.S.

Officials said they remained in regular contact with their Chinese counterparts but could announce no new meeting.

Mr. Wang, who is in Singapore for a Foreign Ministers’ meeting, said the spat will not affect diplomatic cooperation with Washington on North Korea. In a tweet last month, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that China could be undermining a North Korean denuclearisation deal because of the ongoing trade war.

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Agencies
July 28,2020

Sydney, Jul 28: Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, triple the group's earlier estimates.

Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country's worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said.

When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.

"This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history," said WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer Dermot O'Gorman in a statement.

The project leader Lily Van Eeden, from the University of Sydney, said the research was the first continent-wide analysis of animals impacted by the bushfires, and "other nations can build upon this research to improve understanding of bushfire impacts everywhere".

The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter or the prospect of moving to habitat that was already occupied.

The main reason for raising the number of animal casualties was that researchers had now assessed the total affected area, rather than focusing on the most affected states, they said.

After years of drought made the Australian bush unusually dry, the country battled one of its worst bushfire seasons ever from September 2019 to March 2020, resulting in 34 human deaths and nearly 3,000 homes lost.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Hubei, Mar 25: As a bus departed from its terminus at Hankou Railway Station at 5:25 am Wednesday morning, Wuhan started to resume bus service after nine weeks of lockdown.

Apart from a driver, a safety supervisor was also on each bus, whose duty was to make sure all passengers are healthy.
"For those who do not use smartphones, they should bring with them a health certificate issued by the health authorities," said Zhou Jingjing, a safety supervisor aboard bus No. 511 departing from the Wuchang Railway Station complex.
The once hardest-hit city in central China's Hubei Province during the COVID-19 outbreak took unprecedented traffic restrictions on Jan 23. All of its public transport and all outbound flights and trains had been suspended in an attempt to contain the virus within the region.

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News Network
January 10,2020

Washington, Jan 10: It is “highly likely” that Iran shot down the civilian Ukrainian jetliner that crashed near Tehran late Tuesday, killing all 176 people on board, U.S., Canadian and British officials declared Thursday.

They said the fiery missile strike could well have been a mistake amid rocket launches and high tension throughout the region.

The crash came just a few hours after Iran launched a ballistic attack against Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops in its violent confrontation with Washington over the U.S. drone strike that killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general. The airliner could have been mistaken for a threat, said four U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, whose country lost at least 63 citizens in the downing, said in Toronto: “We have intelligence from multiple sources including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”

Likewise, U.K. prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison offered similar statements. Morrison also said it appeared to be a mistake. “All of the intelligence as presented to us today does not suggest an intentional act,” he said.

The assessment that 176 people were killed as collateral damage in the Iranian-U.S. conflict cast a new pall over what had at first appeared to be a relatively calm aftermath following the U.S. military operation that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

At the White House, U.S. president Donald Trump suggested he believed Iran was responsible for the shootdown and dismissed Iran's initial claim that it was a mechanical issue with the plane.

“Somebody could have made a mistake on the other side.” Trump said, noting the plane was flying in a “pretty rough neighborhood."

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