Tag: InternationalNews

Speaking at a press briefing after a videoconference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Macron said France is ready to deliver more gas to Germany while the latter will offer more electricity to France, if the current energy crisis persists in winter.

“We are going to finalize the gas connections in order to be able to deliver gas to Germany…It (Germany) will be ready to produce more electricity to bring to us in extreme situations,” Macron said.

The French president said that he was in favor of solidarity measures at the European level to deal with the current energy crisis.

“We are in favor of common gas purchasing practices that will make it possible to buy cheaper,” he explained.

However, he said there was “no need” for a gas pipeline linking France and Spain.

Concerning the high energy prices in Europe, Macron proposed to set up control mechanisms for speculative operations at the European level.

Days ahead of a European Union (EU) energy ministers’ meeting, Macron said that he supports a price cap on gas purchased from Russia at the EU level.

Macron assured his countrymen that France is not in a situation for energy rationing, but called on people to limit heating to 19 degrees Celsius to save energy.

“If we collectively know how to behave more soberly and save energy everywhere, then there will be no rationing or cuts,” he stressed.

On Friday, Macron chaired a Defense Council meeting on the energy crisis. French Minister for Energy Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher said after the meeting that France’s gas reserves were 92 percent full in preparation for possible shortages this winter.

According to the minister, 32 of the country’s fleet of 56 nuclear reactors are currently offline for routine maintenance, but French multinational electric utility company EDF has committed to restarting all of them for this winter.

As of 8:30 p.m. Monday, 16 people were missing and over 50 injured, said Wang Feng, deputy director of the Sichuan provincial emergency management department.

Among the dead, 29 were from Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture which administers Luding County, and the other 17 were from Ya’an City. Over 50,000 people in Ganzi and Ya’an have been evacuated to safety.

The 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Luding County at 12:52 p.m. Monday (Beijing Time), according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

Sichuan has activated the highest level of emergency response for the earthquake.

As of 6 p.m. Monday, the province had deployed over 6,500 rescuers, four helicopters and two unmanned aerial vehicles to the frontline.

“There were many aftershocks, and some roads were blocked. We had to climb over the debris to get to the town square of Moxi,” said a rescuer from the provincial forest fire brigade.

On the way to Moxi Town, Xinhua reporters saw houses and infrastructure that had been damaged to varying degrees, and some roads partially collapsed.

The town’s electricity and communications had been cut, and emergency power-generation equipment was supplying electricity for residents taking shelter on the square.

Liu Fang, a local official, said that after the earthquake, she and other colleagues immediately evacuated the residents to the square about several hundred meters away.

According to the medics on the scene, after the earthquake, medical staff from the health centers in Moxi and neighboring villages and townships responded immediately. As of 8 p.m., more than 50 slightly injured people had received treatment at a medical site on the square.

A local special police rescue team had received calls saying a man in his 40s was trapped under a collapsed house, and they immediately rushed to the rescue.

However, excavators and other rescue machines could not reach the scene due to the narrow passage. The team thus dug the debris with their bare hands, and successfully rescued the man, who was sent to hospital.

So far, the special police rescue team has rescued more than 30 trapped people.

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Emergency Management earmarked 50 million yuan (about 7.25 million U.S. dollars) to support rescue and relief work. The provincial government also allocated 50 million yuan to Ganzi.

Relief supplies, including some 3,000 tents and 10,000 folding beds, were allocated to Luding County, where the epicenter was located.

According to a TASS report, a group of 10 Russian tourists and two guides set out on the trek on Tuesday. On Saturday, nine people started climbing the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano, while three remained in the camp at an altitude of 3,300 meters.

The victims climbing the volcano died at an altitude of about 4,150 meters. Rescuers onboard a helicopter are trying to extract the other climbers.

Details of the accident were not immediately known.

The Kamchatka peninsula is famous for its array of active and dormant volcanos, hot springs and abundant wildlife. Klyuchevskaya Sopka, with a height of about 4,750 meters, is the highest active volcano in Eurasia.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice party, made the claim at a ceremony presenting a report over Poland’s losses from the German invasion.

Kaczynski said that although the reparations process would be “lengthy and difficult,” the issue was to “gain damages for everything that Germany, that the German state, that the German nation, did in Poland in the years 1939-1945.”

He added that “dozens of countries around the world … have received damages from Germany while Poland has not,” which he attributed to a lack of initiative.

Kaczynski said a general principle applied in international relations whereby if one state does another great harm, it must make good for that harm.

“And there is no reason why Poland has been excluded from the action of that principle,” he said.

Around 6 million Poles, including 3 million Polish Jews, were killed during the Second World War, and the capital Warsaw was levelled following a 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died, according to a Reuters report. (1 Polish zloty = 0.21 U.S. dollars)

In addition to the travel ban on these “high-ranking military, politicians and public figures,” the activities of three non-governmental organizations from Canada are now recognized as undesirable in Russia, the ministry said.

A total of 818 Canadians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have been under Moscow’s sanctions, including an entry ban, official data showed.

{BERLIN, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) — German carmaker BMW on Wednesday started the in-house production of fuel cell systems for its hydrogen-powered ix5 sport utility vehicle (SUV), which is to be rolled out worldwide for testing and demonstration purposes from the end of this year.}

The car combines hydrogen technology with an electric drive and a high-performance battery. The combination is “adding a unique form of drive system for the premium segment,” according to BMW.

“As a versatile energy source, hydrogen has a key role to play on the road to climate neutrality. And it will also gain substantially in importance as far as personal mobility is concerned,” Oliver Zipse, chief executive officer (CEO) of BMW AG, said at a press conference.

BMW has been working on hydrogen drive technology with fuel cells since 2015. Previously, the carmaker had already tested hydrogen combustion engines, which were deemed less effective in the end.

At its hydrogen competence center in the Bavarian capital of Munich, BMW is stacking the individual fuel cells from Toyota with other components to form a complete fuel cell system.

The BMW fuel cell system alone has an output of 125 kilowatts (kW) or 170 hp (horsepower). Together with the electric motor and a power battery developed for the hydrogen car, the powertrain can deliver 275 kW/374 hp.

The state of Bavaria will invest 500 million euros (500 million U.S. dollars) in hydrogen technology with a research center and hydrogen filling stations, Minister President Markus Soeder said at the press conference. “Hydrogen has a future and Bavaria is a leader in electromobility.”

However, the federal government should also support the development of the technology, Soeder said. “There is an urgent need for hydrogen networks in the south from the federal government as well.”

Total trade value stood at 3.39 trillion yuan (about 492.6 billion U.S. dollars), according to the data.

Service exports expanded 22.8 percent year on year to 1.64 trillion yuan, and service imports were 1.75 trillion yuan, up 18.9 percent from a year ago.

The service trade deficit dropped 20.1 percent to 107.73 billion yuan between January and July.

China’s trade of knowledge-intensive services maintained steady growth in the period, rising 10.2 percent year on year to about 1.42 trillion yuan.

Sectors such as telecommunications and information services saw rapid increases in exports, while insurance services were among the fastest growing areas in imports.

Travel service trade continued to recover, with its trade value expanding 7.5 percent from a year ago to 462.23 billion yuan.

In contrast to merchandise trade, service trade involves transportation, tourism, telecommunications, construction, advertising, computing, and accounting.

The ministry said it would promote the negative list on cross-border service trade nationally and seize opportunities coming from implementing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to expand service trade with all member countries.

New business models such as bonded artwork exhibitions will be nurtured, and the imports of technologies and services in carbon emission reduction and environmental protection will be encouraged, the ministry added.

KIEV, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday met with visiting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi to discuss the IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP), the presidential press service reported.

At the talks, Zelensky and Grossi stressed the importance of sending the IAEA mission to the plant, noting that any incident at the facility would have global consequences.

Zelensky spoke highly of the IAEA visit to Ukraine, adding that the situation around the nuclear power plant is escalating.

“There are risks of incidents at the plant, failure of nuclear reactors, disconnection of Zaporizhzhia NPP units from our network,” Zelensky said.

Zelensky voiced his belief that the IAEA mission to the facility led by Grossi would find ways to prevent security threats.

The Zaporizhzhia NPP is one of Europe’s largest nuclear power plants. It has been controlled by Russian forces since early March, but its Ukrainian staff has continued to operate it. In recent weeks, Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations of strikes on the facility.

The IAEA mission to the plant is set to assess the plant’s physical damage, determine its safety and security systems’ functionality, evaluate staff conditions, and perform urgent safeguarding activities.

Speaking at a meeting of the Movement of Enterprises of France (MEDEF), Borne said that common goals were required.

“We are entering an era of collective responsibility,” she said.

“Climate change is no longer an inconvenient truth, it’s a destructive reality. We must implement radical and innovative solutions, initiate powerful changes in the way we produce, and invest in training for the jobs of tomorrow.”

If Russia were to cut all gas exports to Europe, France would need to quickly find ways to “make ecological transition an opportunity for innovation, growth and employment,” Borne said.

“We already know that we will have less gas this winter compared to the other years,” she said.

“This crisis is a new challenge for European solidarity, because in return, we will strongly suffer the consequences of a European economic slowdown. We only have one path, lower energy consumption.”

At the beginning of August, the country’s minister for energy transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher said that France’s gas reserves were already 80 percent full, in preparation for possible shortages this winter.

Pannier-Runacher said that France was ahead of its goals, and that the gas reserves would be 100 percent filled by Nov. 1.

French President Emmanuel Macron is also expected to hold a defense council meeting on Friday, to discuss France’s energy plan for the winter.

The Red Cross Society of China will also provide 300,000 U.S. dollars in emergency cash assistance to the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, Zhao said.

Zhao said the decision to increase the humanitarian aid was made in view of further development of the disaster and Pakistan’s disaster-relief need.

China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners, true friends and good brothers sharing weal and woe. Since the floods started to ravage Pakistan, China has been concerned about the affected people in the country, and State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has expressed sympathy to Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Zhao said.

Under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, China has provided 4,000 tents, 50,000 blankets, and 50,000 pieces of waterproof canvas.

“We will never forget that Pakistan rushed to our assistance after the Wenchuan earthquake (in China) in 2008 and sent all its tents in stock to the stricken area, which deeply touched the Chinese people,” Zhao said. “We also stand with our brotherly Pakistani people in face of this flood.”

He said China will strengthen cooperation with Pakistan on disaster prevention and mitigation, and provide more assistance to Pakistan in fighting floods and post-disaster reconstruction.

The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan and the Pakistani Embassy in China are contacting relevant enterprises and various sectors to raise funds. Hopefully, the Pakistani people will overcome the floods and rebuild their homeland as early as possible, he added.