DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

[1/2] French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech to inaugurate the Festival Croisements at the Red Brick Museum in Beijing, China, April 5, 2023. For Macron's visit at least, there are high expectations in Beijing. "In other words, not everyone wants to see Macron's visit to China go smoothly and successfully." Later in the afternoon, Macron and von der Leyen will separately hold talks with President Xi Jinping before all three hold trilateral talks in the evening. "Three-quarters of the delegation are business leaders: the goal is first and foremost to sign contracts," left-wing MEP Raphael Glucksmann wrote on Twitter ahead of Macron's visit.

ZURICH/BERLIN/LONDON, March 20 (Reuters) - Urs Kessler, who runs Jungfrau Railways, a train that takes tourists up the highest mountain in Switzerland, was excited for the return of Chinese tourists after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted late last year. Chinese outbound flight bookings to Europe during March and August are only 32% that of pre-pandemic levels, according to travel data firm ForwardKeys. OPTIMISM FOR THE FUTUREMany tourist operators and retailers hope the second half will bring a relaxation in visa policies, more flights and the long-expected influx of Chinese tourists. Harrods launched branded stickers, including its iconic teddy bear, on China's popular WeChat messaging platform this year to attract Chinese tourists. Kessler believes his Lang Lang campaign was still worth it.

☆ China cuts reserve ratio given domestic pressures, overseas risks - state media
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SHANGHAI, March 18 (Reuters) - China's central bank made a "timely" move by pumping liquidity into the banking system to respond to rising pressures in the domestic banking industry and growing risks abroad, a state-owned Chinese newspaper said on Saturday. The central bank on Friday reduced the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves for the first time this year to support a nascent recovery in the world's second-biggest economy. The early release of liquidity will also help prepare for the next stage of demand expansion, it said. "Currently the risks in the overseas banking industry are increasing and the external environment is becoming more and more complicated," the newspaper said. Global markets this week have been hit by the collapse of U.S. lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and uncertainty over Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S), which tapped $54 billion in central bank funding.

☆ China to raise retirement age to deal with aging population - media
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, March 14 (Reuters) - China is planning to raise its retirement age gradually and in phases to cope with the country's rapidly aging population, the state-backed Global Times said on Tuesday, citing a senior expert from China's Ministry of Human Resources. Jin Weigang, president of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security Sciences, said China was eyeing a "progressive, flexible and differentiated path to raising the retirement age", meaning that it would be delayed initially by a few months, which would be subsequently increased. "People nearing retirement age will only have to delay retirement for several months," the Global Times said, citing Jin. China has yet to formally announce a change to its retirement age, which is among the lowest in the world at 60 for men, 55 for white-collar women and 50 for women who work in factories. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035.

Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene have both inadvertently slammed the Trump administration in recent weeks. Greene falsely blamed the Biden administration for fentanyl deaths that happened while Trump was in office. MAGA-faithful Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene have both inadvertently slammed the Trump administration in recent weeks while trying to take shots at President Joe Biden. Rep. Matt Gaetz, meanwhile, got schooled for unknowingly basing a critique of Biden's policies on a Communist newspaper. Gaetz tried to recover, pressing Kahl to "just tell me if the allegation is true or false."

☆ Free education, equal rights for unmarried women among proposals to boost China's fertility
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Farah Master | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Tingshu WangHONG KONG, March 2 (Reuters) - Free college education and equal rights for unmarried women are among proposals being urged by members of China’s top political advisory body to boost the country's birth rate after its population fell last year for the first time in six decades. The proposals come ahead of the upcoming Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which kicks off on March 4. China should remove restrictions on marital status used to register newborns, allowing unmarried women to enjoy fertility services like married women do, Xie Wenmin, a member of China's top political advisory body, told the state-backed Global Times this week. Even after authorities scrapped the rule, high childcare and education costs are cited as a key reason for having fewer children. Currently IVF and egg freezing in China are banned for unmarried women.

☆ Matt Gaetz unknowingly cites Chinese Communist newspaper during Ukraine military funding hearing
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rep. Matt Gaetz unknowingly cited from a Chinese propaganda outlet during a congressional hearing. Gaetz asked Colin Kahl, the US's undersecretary of defense for policy. Gaetz asked Kahl. "Is this the — I'm sorry, is this the Global Times from China?" Watch the exchange below:Asked for comment, a spokesman for Gaetz told Insider: "Congressman Gaetz wanted to ask if the report was true.

☆ China's CCP warns Elon Musk against sharing Wuhan lab leak report
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A Chinese state-run newspaper issued a warning to Tesla CEO Elon Musk after he shared reporting on the Department of Energy's 'low confidence' assessment that the global Covid pandemic originated in a Wuhan laboratory. CNBC's Eunice Yoon reported Tuesday morning on the warning from the social media pages of the Global Times, the English-language subsidiary of the CCP-controlled People's Daily. The Global Times warned Musk that he could be "breaking the pot of China" after the Tesla and Twitter chief executive responded to Tweets that asserted that the Covid pandemic originated in a Wuhan research laboratory. The governing Communist Party has been highly sensitive to the matter, especially as it courts outside investment after months of zero-Covid lockdowns prompted nationwide protests, CNBC's Eunice Yoon reported. CNBC's Eunice Yoon contributed to this report

☆ As China's birth rate slumps, political advisor urges egg freezing for single women
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Lu, a fertility doctor in China's southern Hainan province, said giving single women access to freezing their eggs enables them "to preserve the eggs before they pass their peak reproductive years. Currently fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and egg freezing in China are banned for unmarried women. Lu's recommendations come as authorities try to bolster a faltering birth rate with incentives including expanding maternity leave, financial and tax benefits for having children as well as housing subsidies. Last year, China recorded its lowest ever birth rate, of 6.77 births per 1,000 people. While nine of the 10 most populous nations in the world are experiencing declines in fertility, China's 2022 fertility rate of 1.18 was the lowest and well below the 2.1 OECD standard for a stable population.

☆ Chinese students have developed a $40 set of lips that couples can use for 'long-distance kissing'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Aditi Bharade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A remote kissing device, complete with a pair of 3D lips, is on sale in China for about $40. It appears to mimic the pressure, movement and heat of a partner's lips, the SCMP reported. The silicon device, complete with a set of 3D lips, is meant to imitate the pressure, movement, and heat of a partner's lips, the South China Morning Post reported Friday. The device, which is being sold on the Chinese online retail platform Taobao as a "long-distance lovers miracle kissing device," costs 260 Chinese yuan, or about $38, for one individual set of lips and about $79 for a pair. Listing for the remote "kissing device" on Taobao.

☆ This Chinese kissing device lets you smooch over the internet
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

The device, advertised as a way to let long-distance couples share “real” physical intimacy, is causing a buzz among Chinese social media users, who have reacted with both intrigue and shock. To send a kiss, users need to download a mobile phone app and plug the device into their phone’s charging port. After pairing with their partners in the app, couples can start a video call and transmit replicas of their smooches to each other. The kissing device is advertised as a way to share physical intimacy between long-distance couples. While advertised for long-distance relationships, the Chinese device also allows users to pair up anonymously with strangers in the “kissing square” function of the app.

☆ Chinese authorities said they were preparing to shoot down an 'unidentified flying object' spotted near the Yellow Sea
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-12 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Chinese authorities said they have spotted an unidentified flying object and are preparing to shoot it down. The object was spotted over the city of Rizhao on the Yellow Sea, authorities said. The announcement comes a week after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean. Pentagon officials later said that a second suspected Chinese surveillance balloon had been spotted over Latin America on Thursday. The saga of unidentified objects has since continued, as on Friday, the US shot down another unidentified object flying approximately 40,000 feet over Alaska, and on Saturday, another unidentified object was shot down over northern Canada.

☆ China claims it successfully cloned 3 'super cows' that make vastly more milk than normal cows do
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

China claims it's cloned three cows that make up to 18 metric tons of milk per year. "Super cows" are hard to breed since they're identified at the end of their lives, per state-affiliated media. The scientists say they plan to build a herd of 1,000 super cows in the next two to three years. The calves were cloned from "super cows" — unusually productive cows that can make 18 metric tons of milk per year and 100 tons of milk in their lifetimes, pro-government tabloid The Global Times reported. "We plan to take two to three years to build up a herd comprised of over 1,000 super cows," Jin said, per The Global Times.

☆ China says it successfully cloned 3 highly productive ‘super cows’
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

They were cloned from highly productive cows from the Holstein Friesian breed, which originated in the Netherlands. The chosen animals are capable of producing 18 tons of milk per year, or 100 tons of milk in their lifetimes. The scientists made 120 cloned embryos from the ear cells of the highly productive cows and placed them in surrogate cows, according to the Technology Daily. Jin Yaping, the project’s lead scientist, called the birth of the “super cows” a “breakthrough” that allows China to preserve the very best cows “in an economically feasible way,” the state-run newspaper Global Times reported. But some highly productive cows are not identified until the end of their lives, making it difficult to breed them, Jin said.

☆ Millions of Chinese workers on the move ahead of Friday travel peak
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Bernard Orr | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/3] A medical worker helps a patient receiving treatment at the emergency department of a hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China January 17, 2023. Travellers bustled through railway stations and subways in Beijing and Shanghai, many ferrying large wheeled suitcases and boxes stuffed with food and gifts. The infection rate in the southern city of Guangzhou, capital of China's most populous province, has now passed 85%, local health officials announced on Wednesday. Clinics in rural villages and towns are now being fitted with oxygenators, and medical vehicles have also been deployed to isolated areas. Doctors in both public and private hospitals were being actively discouraged from attributing deaths to COVID, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The incident reflects what the U.S. calls a concerning trend of unsafe intercept practices by the Chinese military. The U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft was in international airspace on Dec. 21 when it was intercepted by a J-11 fighter jet from the Chinese navy, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement. The Chinese jet positioned itself about 10 feet from the RC-135’s wing and then drifted within 20 feet of its nose as the American plane maintained its course and speed, leading it to take evasive maneuvers. China claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, where it has territorial disputes with Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and others. Austin also raised the issue at a meeting in November with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe.

Experts say China could face more than a million COVID deaths next year. Authorities in Sanya on the southern Hainan island have lined up 18 pharmacies to distribute free drugs. mRNA VACCINES FOR GERMANSIn China, only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting COVID are being classified as COVID fatalities. Germany said it has sent its first batch of BioNTech (22UAy.DE) COVID vaccines to China to be administered initially to German expatriates. China has nine domestically developed COVID vaccines approved for use.

[1/2] People line up at a makeshift fever clinic set up inside a stadium, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Beijing, China December 19, 2022. "We stand ready to help any country in the world with vaccines, treatments, anything else that we can be helpful with," he said. "We want China to get COVID right," Blinken said earlier this month. “China faces a very challenging system in reopening,” Powell said, adding that its manufacturing, exporting and supply chain remain critical. Officials set up health centers and apps that told people with symptoms how to avoid infecting others, he said.

☆ China’s Xi Jinping Chides Justin Trudeau at G-20, Video Shows
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( James T. Areddy | Paul Vieira | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

That’s not appropriate,” a visibly agitated Mr. Xi told Mr. Trudeau on the G-20 sidelines as the Bali summit was closing, according to a video posted on Twitter by a reporter for Canadian broadcaster CTV. In their encounter on Wednesday, the Canadian prime minister emphasized the importance of transparency and expressed a desire to work constructively despite disagreements. At this year’s G-20 meeting, Mr. Xi didn’t hold formal talks with Mr. Trudeau as he did with President Biden and the leaders of France and Australia, among others. Quoting an unnamed person, the Global Times said Mr. Xi told Mr. Trudeau that the key requirement for China-Canada relations is finding a common ground while managing differences. Speaking to reporters before departing Indonesia, Mr. Trudeau on Wednesday said he had defended Canada’s interests in his conversations with Mr. Xi.

☆ 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.

☆ When Chinese protesters came up against Xi's security machine
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Martin Quin Pollard | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +12 min

Handout via REUTERSBEIJING, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Jack Yao, a Chinese Communist Party member, never wanted to be an activist. It offers a glimpse of the lengths some frustrated citizens will go to in taking on the world's most powerful security state. China's Ministry of Public Security, the Henan and Anhui local governments, and police departments in those provinces and Beijing didn't respond to requests for comment for this article. Chinese authorities say social stability is the foundation for a prosperous future and dismiss human rights complaints as Western propaganda and interference in internal affairs. Protesters chanted: "Henan banks, give us back our deposits."

☆ Chinese state media claims U.S. NSA infiltrated country's telecommunications networks
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Arjun Kharpal | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

But more recently, it has accused the U.S.'s National Security Agency of hacking specific targets. A U.S. intelligence agency gained access to China's telecommunications network after hacking a university, Chinese state media claimed Thursday. American hackers stole "core technology data including key network equipment configuration, network management data, and core operational data," and other files, according to the Global Times. As part of the NSA's hack, the agency infiltrated Chinese telecommunications operators so that the U.S. could "control the country's infrastructure," the Global Times alleged. The Global Times, citing its unnamed source, reported that more details about the attack on Northwestern Polytechnical University will be released soon.

☆ Chinese researchers clone an Arctic wolf in 'landmark' conservation project
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Jessie Yeung | Cnn'S Beijing Bureau | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

"After two years of painstaking efforts, the arctic wolf was cloned successfully. The Arctic wolf, also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf native to the High Arctic tundra, in Canada's northern Arctic Archipelago. Sinogene launched its Arctic wolf cloning project in 2020, in collaboration with the polar theme park Harbin Polarland, it said in a statement posted on the Twitter-like platform Weibo. The company said in its Weibo post that a second cloned arctic wolf is expected to be born soon. The cloned Maya is now living with her beagle surrogate mother, and will later be housed in Harbin Polarland, open to the public.

☆ China plans three missions to the Moon after discovering a new lunar mineral that may be a future energy source
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-11 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

China aims to launch three moon missions over the next decade as part of its Chang'e lunar program. China's National Space Administration won approval for the missions after it found a new mineral. The mineral, Changesite-(Y), could be a future source of energy and was found in lunar samples. It comes a day after China became the third country to discover a new lunar mineral, which it called Changesite-(Y), according to Chinese state-controlled newspaper the Global Times. The discovery may put more pressure on the US to ramp up its efforts after its Artemis I moon mission was postponed for a second time.

☆ China: Investigarea originilor Covid „politizează” pandemia și ar trebui investigate laboratoare secrete din toată lumea
▼ + stars: | 2021-05-27 | by ( Publika.Md - Aici Sunt Știrile | ) www.publika.md time to read: +2 min

Beijingul acuză SUA că „politizează” originile pandemiei și cere o „investigație temeinică a laboratoarelor secrete din toată lumea”. Beijingul spune că „ politizarea originilor Covid-19 nu va face dec ât să pericliteze investigațiile și să submineze efortul global de a opri pandemia”. Chinezii spun că sprijină „un studiu cuprinzător al tuturor cazurilor timpurii de Covid-19 din lume și o investigație temeinică a laboratoarelor secrete din toată lumea”. Originile coronavirusului au fost subiectul numeroaselor teorii ale conspirației promovate online și offline dar și al acuzațiilor dintre puterile lumii. Situația a alimentat tensiuni și conflicte în Statele Unite și China printre altele, iar încercările inițiale ale Chinei de a mușamaliza și a își acoperi urmele, inclusiv prin arestarea jurnaliștilor și pedepsirea medicilor care vorbeau despre gravitatea situației nu au făcut decât să mărească neîncrederea și să alimenteze conflictele.

Persons: Biden, Reuters . Beijingul, Joe Biden, China, Fort Detrick Organizations: Organizația Mondială a Sănătății, Times, Partidului Comunsit Chinez Locations: China, SUA, Washington, Wuhan, Fort, Chinei, Asiei, Statele Unite

Search resuls for: "The Global Times"

25 mentions found