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☆ China is using AI to raise the dead, and give people one last chance to say goodbye
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

I would have liked to watch a few more episodes," the grandfather bot replied. Yu told Tang his grandmother needed the chatbot to process her emotions and mourn. As for himself, he declined to share his intimate conversations with his grandfather bot. Like Yu's grandfather bot, Wu's bot produced limited responses. "These emotions might have overwhelmed me too much to work and live my life," he told Tang.

☆ Huawei reportedly says it has developed domestic chip design tools despite U.S. sanctions
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Arjun Kharpal | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Huawei reportedly said it has developed its own chip design tools, a move aimed at side-stepping U.S. sanctions and making the Chinese technology giant more self-sufficient in the semiconductor space. U.S. firms dominate the chip design tool market with companies like Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems . But in 2020, Washington, through sanctions, cut off Huawei from American chipmaking tools, which crippled the Chinese technology giant's smartphone business. Xu's speech said that the design tools would be for 14 nanometer chips and above. Pranay Kotasthane, chairperson of the high tech geopolitics program at the Takshashila Institution, told CNBC he would wait to see more details before knowing how effective Huawei's design tools are.

☆ Number of Chinese kindergartens drops in 2022 for first time in 15 years-media
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HONG KONG, March 23 (Reuters) - The number of kindergartens in China has dropped for the first time in 15 years, falling by more than 5,000 on the previous year, financial news outlet Yicai reported, citing data from the country's Education Ministry. There were a total of 289,200 kindergartens nationwide in 2022, the Education Ministry said on Thursday. The fall compared to previous years was due to fewer students enrolled in the kindergartens, Yicai said. The number of rural kindergartens is decreasing along with urbanisation as residents move to more urban cities, Yicai said. China's birth rate last year fell to 6.77 births per 1,000 people, from 7.52 births in 2021, the lowest on record.

☆ Beijing investigating illegal mining activities in Chinese lithium hub, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Workers are seen at the production line of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EV) at a factory near Shanghai, China. China's central government has sent a working group to probe illegal mining in the country's lithium hub Yichun, financial news outlet Yicai reported on Sunday. Yichun has 1.1 million tons of lithium oxide reserves and accounts for 12% of global output, according to the South China Morning Post. One lithium analyst, who declined to be named, told Yicai that the industry optimistically estimates that the shutdown will last for about a month. Yichun currently produces between 10,000 tons and 12,000 tons of lithium carbonate per month, it reported.

China said last Saturday that nearly 60,000 people with COVID died in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12 - a roughly ten-fold increase from previous disclosures. However, that number excludes those who die at home, and some doctors in China have said they are discouraged from putting COVID on death certificates. China's chaotic exit from a regime of mass lockdowns, travel restrictions and frequent COVID testing, has also prompted a run on drugs as people fend for themselves against the disease. To meet soaring demand, drugmakers in China are ramping up operations to triple their capacity to make key fever and cough medicines, the state-run China Daily reported on Thursday. Medical facilities are relatively weak in rural areas, thus prevention is difficult and the task is arduous," Xi said, adding that the elderly were a top priority.

☆ China Meheco to distribute Pfizer's COVID treatment in China
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Alessandro DiviggianoHONG KONG, Dec 14 (Reuters) - China Meheco Group Co Ltd (600056.SS) said on Wednesday it signed an agreement with Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) to import and distribute the U.S. drugmaker's oral COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid in mainland China, as the country braces for a surge in COVID patients after scaling back its "zero COVID" policy. The agreement is valid between Dec. 14 and Nov. 30, 2023, China Meheco said in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange. Pfizer last year said it could produce up to 120 million courses of Paxlovid this year. As of Nov. 30, Pfizer had shipped almost 37 million courses of Paxlovid to 52 countries around the world, it said in a statement. The U.S. government announced a deal on Tuesday to buy an additional 3.7 million Paxlovid courses for nearly $2 billion, supplementing the 20 million courses already purchased by the United States.

☆ Conditions for China to downgrade its management of COVID-19 maturing - state media
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Thomas PeterBEIJING, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Conditions for China to downgrade its management of COVID-19 as a serious contagious disease improving as the coronavirus weakens, state media outlet Yicai reported, among the first to float the idea. Category A diseases in China include bubonic plague and cholera, while SARS, AIDS and anthrax fall under Category B. Infectious diseases such as COVID-19 that have strong pathogenicity, a high fatality rate and strong infectivity are classified as Class A or Class B but managed as Class A. COVID-19 could be downgraded to Category B management or even Category C, the expert told Yicai. Any adjustment to the management of infectious diseases by the National Health Commission, China's top health authority, requires the approval of the State Council, or cabinet.

HONG KONG, Dec 5 (Reuters) - China may announce 10 new COVID-19 easing measures as early as Wednesday, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, supplementing 20 unveiled in November that set off a wave of COVID easing steps nationwide. Management of the disease may be downgraded as soon as January, to the less strict Category B from the current top-level Category A of infectious disease, the sources said on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. China will allow home quarantine for some of those testing positive, among the supplementary measures set to be announced, two sources told Reuters last week. COVID-19 could be downgraded to Category B management or even Category C, the expert told Yicai. read moreWriting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Alison Williams and Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/5] Pandemic prevention workers in protective suits walk in a street as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue in Beijing, December 4, 2022. Daily tallies of new COVID infections have also dropped in some regions as authorities row back on testing. CHANGING MESSAGEAlongside the easing of local curbs, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees COVID efforts, said last week the ability of the virus to cause disease was weakening. That change in messaging aligns with the position adopted by many health authorities around the world for more than a year. The eastern province of Zhejiang said it planned to largely end mass testing, while the metropolis of Nanjing dropped COVID tests for use of public transport.

HONG KONG/BEIJING, Nov 24 (Reuters) - China's biggest commercial banks have pledged at least $162 billion in fresh credit to property developers, bolstering recent regulatory measures to ease a stifling cash crunch in the sector and triggering a rally in property shares. Three state-owned banks lined up around $131 billion worth of credit lines to developers on Thursday, a day after three other lenders committed $31 billion, responding to Beijing's call for support. The massive, coordinated injection of liquidity into the property sector buoyed the shares of major developers on Thursday. PSBC late on Thursday announced that it would provide a total of 280 billion yuan in financing to Country Garden as well as others. China Construction Bank Corp (601939.SS) signed cooperative agreements with eight property developers, including Vanke, Longfor and Midea, financial media outlet Yicai reported.

Hong Kong/Beijing CNN Business —More than 100,000 people have signed up for a massive recruitment drive by Apple’s supplier Foxconn for the largest iPhone factory in China, according to Chinese state media. And our hiring process is now closed temporarily,” a Foxconn executive, Yang Han, in Zhengzhou told state news outlet Yicai on Thursday. Some local governments in Henan have recently also asked community officials to join the production line themselves, according to multiple Chinese state media reports. Several unidentified such officials, also known colloquially as local “grassroots officials,” or “cadres,” told state media publication Cailian Press Tuesday that they were told to work at the Zhengzhou campus from one to six months. “We now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated,” the tech giant said in a statement earlier this month.

☆ China's biggest air show opens under cloud of zero-COVID policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Reuters Staff | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

BEIJING (Reuters) -A scaled-down version of China’s biggest air show opened on Tuesday, with some delegates unable to attend because of the country’s zero-COVID policy as virus case numbers there reached their highest level in six months. The show’s organisers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The zero-COVID policy comes amid a broader decoupling from the West in the aerospace industry as China aims for increased self-reliance and watches the effects of strict export sanctions placed on Russia’s aviation industry because of that country’s invasion of Ukraine. China Southern did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China is also showing off a FH-97A “Loyal Wingman” drone model designed to coordinate with crewed aircraft, the Global Times reported.

☆ Chinese planemaker COMAC received new orders for 330 planes
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BEIJING, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Chinese planemaker Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) secured orders from multiple leasing firms to supply a total of 330 planes, according to local news service Yicai. COMAC said at China's biggest airshow in Zhuhai on Tuesday that 300 of the planes are narrowbody jetliner C919s and 30 are ARJ21 regional jets. COMAC will deliver its first C919 aircraft in December to launch customer China Eastern. Reporting by Sophie Yu, Brenda Goh, Editing by Louise HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

New Delhi CNN Business —Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest suppliers, is wrestling with major disruption at its biggest iPhone assembly factory in China, as anxious workers reportedly flee the facility, according to social media videos. “[We] fully understand your eagerness to go back home,” Foxconn told its employees over the weekend, according to a post on Zhengzhou government’s official WeChat account. The Zhengzhou campus is the world’s biggest iPhone factory and typically accounts for as much as 85% of iPhone assembly capacity, according to Lam’s estimates. State media has said that many Foxconn workers are among those walking miles to escape the city. While these disruptions will impact iPhone production in the near term, analysts say it may not dent Apple’s iPhone shipments in the key holiday season.

☆ Tech giant Tencent was China's most valuable company for 6 years. In September, it finally lost the title — to a liquor company.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chinese tech giant Tencent's value has dropped to the worth of a local Chinese liquor giant. Once worth nearly $1 trillion, the gaming and internet giant now hovers at less than half of its peak market value. On September 30, Tencent lost its status as China's most valuable company when its market capitalization dipped below that of Guizhou-based distiller Kweichow Moutai. Harsh restrictions on tech giants spelled the end of Tencent's glory daysMoutai liquor is placed in a liquor store in Moutai town in Guizhou province. Costfoto/Future Publishing via Getty ImagesThat Kweichou Moutai's market value could even be compared to Tencent's shows how far the tech behemoth has fallen.

DEBT STRESSTreasury bond quotas could be increased, so that some of them could be transferred to local governments to ease their fiscal stress, said Luo Zhiheng, chief macroeconomic analyst at Yuekai Securities. Combined with some maturing debts of local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) - investment companies that build infrastructure projects - this year and the next will be most stressful for local governments, he said. According to financial media outlet Yicai, local governments' revenue from fines and confiscations jumped 10.4% in January-July year-on-year. The fiscal stress is cutting into some households' income, a red flag for consumption and broader growth. As there is no way out, they have had to ask the local government fiscal department for money."

☆ Целый город в Китае был помещен на карантин после обнаружения случая COVID-19
▼ + stars: | 2020-12-13 | by ( Mld Media Srl | ) noi.md time to read: +1 min

Китай закрыл транспортное сообщение с городским уездом Дуннин, который на востоке граничит с Россией. Власти закрыли Дуннин, после того как 10 декабря в нем зарегистрировали нового заразившегося коронавирусом, о чем писало агентство Xinhua. Всего в провинции Хэйлунцзян, в которой находится городской уезд, зарегистрировали пять инфицированных, трое из которых переносят COVID-19 бессимптомно, сообщили местные власти. С того времени в стране зарегистрировали 86,7 тыс. В стране в рамках борьбы с пандемией ограничивали движение транспорта, а также закрывали на жесткий карантин отдельные районы.

Persons: Дуннин Locations: Китай, Россия, Дуннин, Хэйлунцзян, Ухань, КНР

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