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  • Hong Kong says it’s back open for business. Will the world buy it? | CNN

    Hong Kong says it’s back open for business. Will the world buy it? | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    At a glitzy finance summit in Hong Kong this week, the city’s leader triumphantly told a room packed with top Wall Street executives that the Asian hub was back in business. “The worst is behind us,” he declared.

    Two days later, tens of thousands of rugby fans descended on the city’s largest stadium for the Hong Kong Sevens, its biggest (and usually booziest) annual sporting event, which had been suspended since 2019 due to political unrest, and, later, Covid-19.

    The two high-profile international events sent a clear message: After almost three years of border closures, mandatory quarantines, and restrictions on businesses and social gatherings, Hong Kong was finally reopening.

    For much of the pandemic, the semi-autonomous Chinese city maintained some of the region’s most stringent restrictions, including one of the world’s longest mandatory quarantines for international arrivals. With the economy tanking and concerns mounting that Hong Kong was being left behind as the world moved on, the government finally threw open the city’s doors in September and ended formal quarantine to the relief of millions of people.

    “We were, we are and we will remain one of the world’s leading financial centers,” vowed Hong Kong leader John Lee at Wednesday’s summit, attended by more than 200 investors from 20 countries. “You can take that to the bank.”

    Speaking on Friday ahead of the kickoff of the Sevens, Hong Kong Rugby Union CEO Robbie McRobbie hailed the return of the tournament as a “catalyst, watershed,” a symbol that “Hong Kong is still a vibrant, resilient city.”

    But experts warn the push to revive Hong Kong, while welcome and long overdue, faces many challenges ahead.

    The past few years of isolation, which coincided with an ongoing political crackdown, have taken their toll, they said. Despite what Lee and other leaders insist, the Hong Kong that’s reopening is not the same city the world knew before the pandemic – and the true impact of that change remains to be seen.

    Last year, as many destinations reopened to travelers and relaxed restrictions, Hong Kong appeared to be stuck in a different reality.

    Restaurants, bars and gyms were frequently forced to shutter or limit their hours. Residential buildings were placed under lockdown for days. At one point, public gatherings were capped at two people. And most residents didn’t leave the city for years, unable or unwilling to spend up to three weeks in hotel quarantine at their own cost upon return.

    Businesses were hit hard. The Sevens tournament makes up 95% of the Hong Kong Rugby Union’s revenue, so “we’ve had three years of redundancies and cutbacks,” said McRobbie.

    Many disillusioned residents chose to leave permanently; this past year, the city recorded its steepest drop in population since records began in 1961. Companies, too, began eyeing other locations – most notably Singapore, Hong Kong’s longtime regional rival.

    But Hong Kong authorities, eager to reopen the border with mainland China – which still shows no sign of easing its strict zero-Covid policy that aims to stamp out infections – remained reluctant to loosen restrictions for fear cases would spike and close that door.

    Then, a severe outbreak fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant at the start of the year put an end to Hong Kong’s hope of maintaining zero daily cases.

    Under mounting public pressure, the government lifted flight bans with certain countries and shortened hotel quarantine in March – but these small concessions did little to lure people back.

    According to media reports in August, some Wall Street banks warned their executives would only attend Wednesday’s finance summit if there was quarantine-free travel – a widely-speculated factor behind the government’s ultimate decision to scrap quarantine.

    Finance leaders in the city breathed a sigh of relief at the news.

    “We’ve been closed for too long,” said Sebastian Paredes, CEO of Singaporean bank DBS’ Hong Kong operations. “We are beginning to open up following the other parts of the world that have already opened up. And this is a tangible demonstration that Hong Kong is back.”

    Attendees at the Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit in Hong Kong on November 2.

    Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia Pacific Economist of French investment bank Natixis, agreed the week’s dual big events were “a big sign of Hong Kong moving away from Covid restrictions to a new world.”

    However, the remaining restrictions pose a competitive disadvantage.

    International visitors must take Covid tests for seven straight days after arrival in Hong Kong, and for the first three days are barred from restaurants, bars and gyms. But the testing doesn’t stop there – bars and clubs that don’t serve food require proof of a negative rapid antigen test from all patrons.

    A mask mandate – indoors and outdoors – is also in effect, though photos of the finance summit show attendees sitting at tables without face coverings. They included the city’s Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who was declared a “recovered case” by health authorities after testing positive for Covid upon arrival from a trip abroad on Tuesday.

    Hong Kong's Financial Secretary Paul Chan makes a speech at the Global Financial Leaders Investment Summit in Hong Kong on November 2, 2022.

    These rules are “still largely prohibiting the overseas travel market,” said McRobbie, the Hong Kong rugby chief. Before the pandemic, roughly half the fans at the Sevens came from abroad; this year, that number is “negligible,” he said.

    The long stretch of isolation and financial hardship has also created challenges for companies hoping for a comeback. Many people have left the sports and events sectors in the past few years in favor of more stable jobs, leaving the industry short staffed, McRobbie added.

    This partial reopening has left the city in an awkward Covid limbo, said Vera Yuen, an economics lecturer at the University of Hong Kong.

    “If we want to open up our border with the Mainland China, our restriction is too lenient … so it’s not allowed,” she said. “But then if we want to open ourselves up to the world, we are still too stringent. We are now stuck in between, hoping to see better policies in the future.”

    Others also warn of growing political challenges. “Clouds are certainly coming to Hong Kong from different angles,” said banker Garcia-Herrero, pointing to the West’s response to the sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.

    Under this law, pro-democracy activists have been jailed or exiled, independent newsrooms shut down, and former lawmakers targeted. Meanwhile, authorities have changed school curricula to emphasize Chinese history and culture, and pushed greater economic cooperation in the Greater Bay Area, a national scheme to link China’s southern Guangdong province closer with Hong Kong and Macao.

    The law has been widely criticized by foreign governments and human rights organizations, with the United States sanctioning Lee and other top Hong Kong officials over their role in the crackdown. Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly claimed the law has restored order and stability after the city’s 2019 anti-government, pro-democracy protests.

    For the US and the European Union, the national security law and crackdown represent “a change in the rules of the game in what was agreed upon,” said Garcia-Herrero.

    These rising tensions could spell trouble for Hong Kong’s trade and diplomatic relationships with other countries. Hong Kong is afforded more freedoms than other Chinese cities, thus has long been seen as a gateway between the mainland and the West – a position that looks increasingly precarious as its civil liberties erode.

    “The West would now understand that Hong Kong is not only part of China, but it’s closer to China than before,” said Yuen, the economics lecturer. “The worst scenario is that the West would treat Hong Kong as the same as the mainland China, and then Hong Kong would suffer the kind of sanctions.”

    And this drawing closer together is likely to continue. In an effort to stem the brain drain, the government is spending 30 billion Hong Kong dollars ($3.8 billion) to draw in global businesses and fresh talent – which Yuen said is expected to “attract a lot of mainland workers” who may be eager to escape an even more dire job market across the border.

    Despite these geopolitical frictions, some argue Hong Kong’s innate advantages will allow a revival – even if the city is heading in a different direction than before.

    Asia doesn’t have many other financial centers that can match Hong Kong’s open regulatory environment, low salaries tax and existing financial infrastructure – “therefore, even if the image may be tarnished a little bit, there are not many other places to go,” said Garcia-Herrero.

    Yuen echoed this point, saying the city’s proximity to China remains appealing to businesses and investors hoping to tap into the vast and lucrative mainland market.

    Travelers in the departure hall at Hong Kong International Airport following the government's scrapping of hotel quarantine, on September 26.

    “We can plug into China and sort of maintain the status as having a little bit of autonomy, and (being) different from them, given different Covid policies and (systems of) governance,” she said.

    But, both experts acknowledged, the path forward is now fraught with new risks. International businesses may come to Hong Kong, but be warier in how much they invest in the city, keeping in mind the threat of US sanctions and regional conflict.

    Today’s Hong Kong is increasingly under Beijing’s control, with China growing more assertive on the world stage as leader Xi Jinping enters a third term in power surrounded by loyalists. Those rising tensions between China and its rivals have caused growing divides “as the world deglobalizes,” said Garcia-Herrero – effects that inevitably spill over into Hong Kong, caught in the middle.

    “It will never be, in my opinion, what it used to be in terms of the openness of Hong Kong to both the West and the East,” she said.

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  • US, allies clash with China, Russia over NKorea missiles

    US, allies clash with China, Russia over NKorea missiles

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    UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its allies clashed with China and Russia on Friday over North Korea’s escalating ballistic missile launches and American-led military exercises in South Korea, again preventing any action by the deeply divided U.N. Security Council.

    U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said North Korea’s “staggering 59 ballistic missile launches this year,” including 13 since Oct. 27 and one that made an “unprecedented impact” about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from South Korea’s shore, are about more than advancing Pyongyang’s military capabilities and seek to raise tensions and stoke fear in its neighbors.

    She said 13 of the 15 Security Council members have condemned North Korea’s actions since the beginning of the year, but Pyongyang has been protected by Russia and China who have “bent over backwards” to justify repeated violations of U.N. sanctions by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, the country’s official name.

    “And, in turn, they have enabled the DPRK and made a mockery of this council,” she said.

    China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun countered that the DPRK missile launches are directly linked to the re-launch of large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercises after a five-year break, with hundreds of warplanes involved. He also pointed to the U.S. Defense Department’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review which he said envisages the DPRK’s use of nuclear weapons and claims that ending the DPRK regime is one of the strategy’s main goals.

    Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva blamed the significantly worsening situation on the Korean peninsula on “the desire of Washington to force Pyongyang to unilaterally disarm by using sanctions and exerting pressure and force.”

    She called the U.S.-South Korean exercises that began on Oct. 31 unprecedented in size, with about 240 military aircraft, and claimed they are “essentially a rehearsal for conducting massive strikes on the territory of the DPRK.”

    America’s Thomas-Greenfield responded to claims by China and Russia that the military drills were stoking tensions on the Korean peninsula saying: “This is nothing but a regurgitation of DPRK propaganda.” She said the longstanding defensive military exercises “pose no threat to anyone, let alone the DPRK.”

    “In contrast, just last month, the DPRK said its flurry of recent launches were the simulated use of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to `hit and wipe out’ potential U.S. and Republic of Korea targets,” she said. “The DPRK is simply using this as an excuse to continue to advance its unlawful programs.”

    The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years seeking to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding. In May, however, China and Russia blocked a Security Council resolution that would have toughened sanctions over the missile launches, in the first serious rift on the council over the sanctions against North Korea.

    That rift remains and appears to have grown deeper, but Russia, China and the United States did agree on one thing: the need for renewed talks and a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

    China’s Zun called on the U.S. “to stop unilaterally playing up tensions and confrontation” and respond “to the legitimate and reasonable concerns of the DPRK to create conditions for the resumption of meaningful dialogue.” And he said the Security Council, rather than seeking additional pressure on the DPRK, should contribute “to the restart of dialogue and negotiation and resolving the humanitarian and livelihood difficulties faced by the DPRK.”

    Russia’s Evstigneeva said further sanctions would threaten North Korean citizens “with unacceptable social, economic and humanitarian upheavals,” and reiterated the need “for preventive diplomacy and the importance of finding a political diplomatic solution and real steps by Washington, more than just promises to establish substantive dialogue.”

    Thomas-Greenfield said even in the face of the DPRK’s escalating missile launches, “the United States remains committed to a diplomatic solution” and has conveyed its request to the DPRK for talks at all levels of the U.S. government.

    After the meeting, the 10 elected council members joined in a statement condemning the launches, calling on the DPRK to halt its nuclear and missile programs, and reiterating their commitment to diplomacy and dialogue.

    The U.S., Britain, France, South Korea, Japan and others then read a statement calling on all countries to join in condemning North Korea’s “destabilizing behavior and urging the DPRK to abandon its unlawful weapons programs and engage in diplomacy toward denuclearization.”

    Before the council meeting, former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of Associated Press executives that he is deeply concerned at North Korea’s “unacceptable behavior” and expressed hope that the Security Council would take “very decisive and strong measures.”

    North Korea is the only country since the end of World War II that has declared it will use nuclear weapons in a first strike “when they feel that any crisis may be imminent to them,” he said, calling this “arbitrary” and “irresponsible.”

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  • Biden vows to ‘free Iran’ in West Coast campaign speech

    Biden vows to ‘free Iran’ in West Coast campaign speech

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    OCEANSIDE, Calif., Nov 3 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday vowed to “free” Iran, and said that demonstrators working against the country’s government would soon succeed in freeing themselves.

    “Don’t worry, we’re gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon,” Biden said during a wide-ranging campaign speech in California, as dozens of demonstrators gathered outside holding banners supporting Iranian protesters.

    Biden did not expand on his remarks or specify what additional actions he would take during the remarks at MiraCosta College near San Diego.

    The White House’s National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign fundraising event for U.S. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) in San Diego, California, U.S., November 3, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

    Seven weeks of demonstrations in Iran were ignited by the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Iran’s morality police.

    The protests triggered by Amini’s death on Sept. 16 have shown the defiance of many young Iranians in challenging the clerical leadership, overcoming fear that has stifled dissent in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. read more

    The United States on Wednesday said it will try to remove Iran from the 45-member U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) over the government’s denial of women’s rights and brutal crackdown on protests. read more

    Iran is just starting a four-year term on the commission, which meets annually every March and aims to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.

    Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Stephen Coates

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • North Carolina reports possible voter intimidation, threats ahead of midterm elections

    North Carolina reports possible voter intimidation, threats ahead of midterm elections

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    WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – North Carolina officials have registered 14 instances of potential intimidation or interference with voters and election workers in the run-up to Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections, according to records provided to Reuters on Friday.

    The alleged incidents come as grassroots poll observers, many recruited by prominent Republican Party figures and activists, fan out in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote, a trend that has worried experts and officials.

    Many of the activists have embraced false conspiracy theories, spread by former President Donald Trump, which hold that the 2020 election was marred by fraud and that the upcoming congressional elections are similarly vulnerable.

    Incident reports released to Reuters on Friday show that the North Carolina State Board of Elections is tracking eight instances of potential voter intimidation, one of potential voter interference and five of potential interference with election workers during early voting. The alleged incidents are spread across nine counties and include major metropolitan areas such as Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, as well as more rural areas.

    It is not the only state where officials have raised concerns. Arizona late last month asked the Justice Department to investigate a case of possible voter intimidation, and officials there have since said they have observed several more possible instances of intimidation.

    In several other states, aggressive canvassing tactics by Republican-aligned groups have raised voter intimidation concerns among election officials and voting rights lawyers.

    Nearly 36 million Americans have so far cast early ballots, either at in-person sites or by mail, according to a tally by the U.S. Election Project.

    Signs direct voters into a polling station during the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Durham, Durham County, North Carolina, U.S., November 3, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

    Most of the North Carolina incidents, which were described in only general terms, involved photographing, videotaping or yelling at voters and officials, the reports show.

    In Mecklenburg County, observers allegedly approached election workers as they returned to a government office and photographed their license plates. In one case in Columbus County in the state’s southeast, an observer allegedly followed an election worker in his or her car.

    Katherine Horn, chair of Columbus County’s election board, told Reuters that the sheriff’s office was looking into the incident.

    Harnett County, north of Fayetteville, had recorded two incidents, one in late October involving an individual who stood extremely close to poll workers and another on Friday involving individuals who were videotaping voters, said county election director Claire Jones.

    “The State Board and its law enforcement partners are monitoring several isolated incidents of possible voter or poll worker harassment or intimidation, as well as cases of aggressive campaigning outside polling places,” Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said in a statement.

    “We take these incidents very seriously. When they occur, we will work with our law enforcement partners on appropriate responses.”

    North Carolina officials noted unusually aggressive observers during May’s primary election in 16 counties.

    Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Scott Malone and Aurora Ellis

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Gram Slattery

    Thomson Reuters

    Washington-based correspondent covering campaigns and Congress. Previously posted in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and has reported extensively throughout Latin America. Co-winner of the 2021 Reuters journalist of the Award in the business coverage category for a series on corruption and fraud in the oil industry. He was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College.

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  • U.S. Congress split on making daylight-saving time permanent

    U.S. Congress split on making daylight-saving time permanent

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    WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – A push in the U.S. Congress to make daylight-saving time permanent, which was unanimously passed by the Senate earlier this year, has stalled in the House, with a key lawmaker telling Reuters they have been unable to reach consensus.

    In March, the Senate voted to put a stop next year to the twice-annual changing of clocks, which supporters say will lead to brighter afternoons and more economic activity.

    U.S. Representative Frank Pallone, who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee that has jurisdiction over the issue, said in a statement to Reuters the House is still trying to figure out how to move forward.

    “We haven’t been able to find consensus in the House on this yet. There are a broad variety of opinions about whether to keep the status quo, to move to a permanent time, and if so, what time that should be,” Pallone, a Democrat, said, adding that opinions break down by region, not by party.

    Legislative aides told Reuters they do not expect Congress to reach agreement before the end of the year. Supporters in the Senate would need to reintroduce the bill next year if it is not approved by the end of the year.

    Daylight-saving time has been in place in nearly all of the United States since the 1960s. Year-round daylight-saving time was used during World War Two and adopted again in 1973 in a bid to reduce energy use because of an oil embargo and repealed a year later.

    “We don’t want to make a hasty change and then have it reversed several years later after public opinion turns against it — which is exactly what happened in the early 1970s,” Pallone said.

    On Sunday, Nov. 6 at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT), the United States will resume standard time.

    Pallone previously said he backs ending the clock-switching but has not decided whether to support daylight or standard time as the permanent choice.

    Supporters also argue that if approved, the so-called Sunshine Protection Act would allow children to play outdoors later, and reduce seasonal depression. It would also prevent a slight uptick in car crashes that typically occurs around time changes — notably crashes with deer.

    They also point to studies suggesting a small increase in heart attacks and strokes soon after the time change and argue the measure could help businesses like golf courses draw more customers into the evening.

    Critics, including the National Association of Convenience Stores, say it will force many children to walk to school in darkness during the winter, since the measure would delay sunrise by an hour in some places.

    On Sunday, Mexico rolled back its clocks one last time after the passage of a law last week to abolish daylight-saving time. Some northern towns will continue to practice the time change come spring, however, likely due to their ties with U.S. cities across the border.

    The move, long sought by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was based on backing by voters as well as negligible energy savings and negative health effects from the time change, officials said.

    The White House declined to say earlier this year if Biden supports making daylight-saving time permanent.

    Since 2015, about 30 states have introduced or passed legislation to end the twice-yearly changing of clocks, with some states proposing to do it only if neighboring states do the same.

    The bill would allow Arizona and Hawaii, which do not observe daylight-saving time, to remain on standard time as well as American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Kylie Madry in Mexico City; editing by Diane Craft

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • India’s Aam Aadmi party set for big gains in Modi’s home state

    India’s Aam Aadmi party set for big gains in Modi’s home state

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    SURAT, India, Nov 4 (Reuters) – India’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), formed only a decade ago and having claimed power in Delhi and Punjab state, is set to be the biggest gainer in assembly elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat next month.

    AAP boss and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is known to have national ambitions. A strong showing in Gujarat, a prosperous state of more than 60 million, could indicate whether his party’s appeal has widened beyond smaller states ahead of the 2024 general election.

    According to a projection by ABP-CVoter, AAP’s vote share in Gujurat is expected to rise to 20% from zero five years ago, mainly at the expense of the main opposition Congress party, which dominated Indian politics before being drubbed by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the last two general elections.

    Seven voters in Gujarat’s Surat city, a diamond cutting and polishing hub, told Reuters they had been drawn to AAP’s promise to improve education and healthcare – both areas where the party says it has delivered results in Delhi since 2015.

    “Ninety-nine per cent I am going to vote for Aam Adam Party,” said diamond worker Bharat Patel.

    “Many in my personal and professional circles are also going to do the same. I have heard a lot about their work in education and healthcare in Delhi and I feel they deserve a chance.”

    The Hindu-nationalist BJP has been in power in Gujarat since 1998, with Modi serving as its chief minister for nearly 13 years. Current projections show Congress will stay the second- biggest party in the 182 member-assembly, but that could change.

    “It looks like the surge of the Aam Aadmi Party is not going down,” Yashwant Deshmukh, founder of polling agency CVoter, told Reuters. “If the trajectory continues, and they end up with a 25-26% vote share, they could trump Congress.”

    Gujarat will vote in two phases on Dec. 1 and Dec. 5. Results are due on Dec. 8.

    AAP, which grew out of an anti-corruption movement in 2012, has been strengthening its presence in Gujarat, including in its second-largest city of Surat.

    Early last year, it won 27 of the 120 seats in Surat’s municipal elections, emerging as the main contender to the BJP.

    Across Surat, large hoardings of the BJP and AAP dominate the streets. With pictures of Modi, the ruling party is underlining the advantages of having a BJP government at the state and nationally.

    “How many votes the AAP gets and how many seats it can win remains to be seen,” said Virang Bhatt, a Surat-based political analyst. “But the party has certainly managed to create strong visibility and appeal here.”

    Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Krishna N. Das and Mark Potter

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Putin says West sows nonsense about history

    Putin says West sows nonsense about history

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    LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Friday said the West had hammered historical nonsense into the heads of millions of people, including about the real course of World War Two and the Soviet Union’s role in the victory over Nazi Germany.

    Without citing evidence, Putin repeated a claim that Poland has not abandoned dreams of taking over parts of Ukraine.

    Poland has repeatedly denied such Russian claims, and says such statements are disinformation spread by Moscow in an attempt to sow discord between Warsaw and Kyiv.

    Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Analysis: Sanctions fail to halt North Korea’s accelerating weapons programs

    Analysis: Sanctions fail to halt North Korea’s accelerating weapons programs

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    WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Economic sanctions, the primary means the United States has used for years to try to exert pressure on North Korea, have abjectly failed to halt its nuclear and missile programs or to bring the reclusive northeast Asian state back to the negotiating table.

    Instead, North Korea’s ballistic missile program has become stronger and it has carried out a record-breaking testing regime of multiple types of weapons this year – including of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the U.S. mainland. Expectations are that it may soon end a self-imposed five-year moratorium on nuclear bomb testing.

    Now, U.S. policy makers and their predecessors can do little more than pick through the wreckage and seek to determine what went wrong, and who might be to blame.

    “We’ve had a policy failure. It’s a generational policy failure,” said Joseph DeThomas, a former U.S. diplomat who worked on North Korea and Iran sanctions and served in the administrations of Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

    “An entire generation of people worked on this. It’s failed … so alright, now we have to go to the next step, figure out what we do about it.”

    Biden administration officials concede that sanctions have failed to stop North Korea’s weapons programs – but they maintain they have at least been effective in slowing North Korea’s nuclear program.

    “I would disagree with the idea that sanctions have failed. Sanctions have failed to stop their programs – that’s absolutely true,” a senior administration official told Reuters. “But I think that if the sanctions didn’t exist, (North Korea) would be much, much further along, and much more of a threat to its neighbors to the region and to the world.”

    The State Department, U.S. Treasury and White House’s National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Former officials and experts say sanctions were never imposed robustly enough for long enough and blame faltering U.S. overtures to North Korea as well as pressures like Russia’s war in Ukraine and U.S-China tensions over Taiwan for making them ineffective and easy for North Korea to circumvent.

    North Korea has long been forbidden to conduct nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by the U.N. Security Council.

    The Security Council has imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 to choke off funding for it nuclear and ballistic missile programs. They now include exports bans coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capping imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

    However U.N. experts regularly report that North Korea is evading sanctions and continuing to develop its programs.

    Russia and China backed toughened sanctions after North Korea’s last nuclear test in 2017, but it is not clear what U.N action – if any – they might agree to if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear test.

    CHINESE AND RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

    The senior Biden administration official told Reuters Washington believes China and Russia have leverage to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear bomb testing. But the Biden administration has accused China and Russia of enabling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

    Anthony Ruggiero, who headed North Korea sanctions efforts under former President Donald Trump, said they were only pursued vigorously enough from the last year of the Obama administration to early in Trump’s second year. They then dropped off in the ultimately vain hope of progress in summit negotiations between Trump and Kim.

    Some critics like sanctions expert Joshua Stanton fault both the Trump and Biden administrations for failing to exert maximum pressure to stop China allowing North Korea’s sanctions evasion. They point to the powerful option of imposing sanctions on big Chinese banks that have facilitated this.

    “The sanctions we don’t enforce don’t work, and we haven’t been enforcing them since mid-2018,” Stanton said, noting that history had shown a correlation between stronger enforcement and North Korea willingness to engage diplomatically.

    “The Biden administration’s most significant failure is its failure to prosecute or penalize the Chinese banks we know are laundering Kim Jong Un’s money,” he said.

    Some experts like DeThomas argue that taking what some call the “nuclear option” of going after Chinese banks could exclude huge Chinese institutions from the international financial system and have catastrophic consequences not just for the Chinese, but for the U.S. and global economies – something Stanton considers unfounded.

    “Going full bore against the Chinese over North Korea is always a possibility, but it’s a high-risk option,” said DeThomas, arguing that such a measure should be reserved for an even more pressing scenario, such as deterring any move by China to all-out support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    “You want them to be thinking about that. And you can’t fire that gun twice,” he said. “And even if you sanctioned the Chinese banks, you wouldn’t get the North Koreans to change.”

    Some U.S. academic experts argue that Washington should recognize North Korea for what it is – a nuclear power that is never going to disarm – and use sanctions relief to incentivize better behavior.

    “I do think we can buy things other than disarmament with our economic leverage,” Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies told a conference in Ottawa this week.

    “I do think we can buy things other than disarmament with our economic leverage,” Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told a conference in Ottawa this week.

    The senior Biden administration official said maintaining sanctions was not just punitive, but about the international community showing it is united.

    He rejected the idea that Washington should recognize North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

    “There is an extraordinarily strong global consensus … that the DPRK should not, and must not, be a nuclear nation,” he said. “No country is calling for this … the consequences of changing policy, I think would be profoundly negative.”

    Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Michelle Nichols
    Editing by Alistair Bell

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • EXCLUSIVE G7 coalition has agreed to set fixed price for Russian oil -sources

    EXCLUSIVE G7 coalition has agreed to set fixed price for Russian oil -sources

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    WASHINGTON/LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The Group of Seven rich nations and Australia have agreed to set a fixed price when they finalize a price cap on Russian oil later this month, rather than adopting a floating rate, sources said on Thursday.

    U.S. officials and G7 countries have been in intense negotiations in recent weeks over the unprecedented plan to put a price cap on sea-borne oil shipments, which is scheduled to take effect on Dec. 5 – to ensure EU and U.S. sanctions aimed at limiting Moscow’s ability to fund its invasion of Ukraine do not throttle the global oil market.

    “The Coalition has agreed the price cap will be a fixed price that will be reviewed regularly rather than a discount to an index,” said a coalition source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “This will increase market stability and simplify compliance to minimize the burden on market participants.”

    The initial price itself has not been set, but should be in coming weeks, multiple sources said. Coalition partners agreed to regularly review the fixed price and revise it as needed, the source said, without disclosing further details.

    Pegging the price as a discount to some index would have resulted in too much volatility and potential price swings, the source added.

    The coalition worried that a floating price pegged below the Brent international benchmark might enable Russian President Vladimir Putin to game the mechanism by reducing supply, a second source with knowledge of the discussions said.

    Putin could benefit from a floating price system because the price for his country’s oil would also rise if Brent spiked due to a cut in oil from Russia, one of the world’s largest petroleum producers. The downside of the agreed fixed price system is that it will require more meetings of the coalition and bureaucracy to review it regularly, the source said.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other G7 officials argue the price cap, set to begin Dec. 5 on crude and Feb. 5 on oil products, will squeeze funding to Russia without cutting supply to consumers. Russia has said it will refuse to ship oil to countries that set price caps.

    Shipping services are eager to see more details about the G7 plan which is due to take effect in a month.

    A steady price cap could enable insurers to more confidently roll over contracts and initiate new ones without fear that the price could be adjusted by the countries buying Russian oil, which could have potentially exposed insurers to sanctions.

    No immediate comment was available from Treasury or the embassies of coalition members, which include the G7 rich nations, the European Union and Australia.

    Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the United States and its allies had agreed on further details on which sales of Russian oil will face the price cap.

    Each load of seaborne Russian oil will only be subject to the price cap when first sold to a buyer on land, the countries determined. Reuters could not immediately verify the report which cited people familiar with the matter.

    Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Timothy Gardner in Washington and Noah Browning in London; editing by Heather Timmons and Matthew Lewis

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan blames establishment figures for plot to kill him | CNN

    Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan blames establishment figures for plot to kill him | CNN

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    Islamabad, Pakistan
    CNN
     — 

    Tensions escalated in Pakistan on Friday as former Prime Minister Imran Khan blamed establishment figures for a plot to kill him – a claim strenuously denied by governing and security officials.

    A day after after he survived a shooting at a political rally outside the town of Gujranwala, Punjab province, Khan gave a rambling speech at a hospital in the city of Lahore where he was recovering from the injuries he sustained. While sitting in a wheelchair, the cricket star-turned-politician cited three senior figures as being behind the attack.

    The former Pakistan leader sustained a fracture to his right leg due to stray bullet wounds, Dr. Faisal Sultan told reporters. Sultan displayed X-rays showing the fracture in Khan’s right leg, and bullet fragments that were lodged in two sides of his thigh.

    Without offering evidence, Khan blamed Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif, interior minister Rana Sanaullah and Major General Faisal, who is a senior intelligence official. CNN is reaching out to the three men for comment.

    Khan first alleged on Thursday that the trio were responsible for the plot, in a statement shared by PTI senior leader Asad Umar, who said he had recently spoke to Khan.

    In a televised address on Thursday, Sanaullah rejected the accusation, calling it “grievous.”

    Pakistan’s intelligence agency also rebutted Khan’s claims that a senior intelligence official was behind the shooting, with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) telling CNN in a statement that the accusations are “baseless.”

    “This is an attempt to prejudice the investigation from the very beginning. The organization had already sensitized the federal government about the threat to the former prime minister, who had communicated this to the Punjab provincial government,” the statement read.

    The ISI also said that Khan’s security was under the authority of the provincial government of Punjab, which is led by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

    “The security of the former PM was the responsibility of the PTI led government in the province of Punjab. The incident of the shooting is a security lapse on behalf of the government of Punjab and cannot be attributed to any individual or any security agency. The need of the hour is for calm in the country and not for irresponsible statements,” the ISI said in a statement.

    Khan had said he knew about the plot to kill him a day before it happened, and claimed there were two shooters involved in his attack.

    “There was a burst from one side, and another coming from the front. There were two people,” Khan said when talking about the attack.

    Khan has locked horns with the government since his dramatic ouster in a no-confidence vote in April. During that time, he’s repeatedly claimed, without any evidence, that the United States was behind his loss of power.

    One person died in Thursday’s attack which injured several others and prompted protests among Khan’s supporters.

    Video of the alleged attack shows Khan waving from an open-topped truck, when shots rang out, sending his party members ducking for cover.

    A bullet hit Khan in the leg, said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Asad Umar, who later added: “Yes, he has been shot, there are pellets lodged in his leg, his bone has been chipped, he has also been shot in his thigh.”

    A man suspected of firing shots at the rally was detained on Thursday, according to police.

    On Thursday, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information released a video of a confession from an unnamed man who it claims carried out the attack.

    Khan called on citizens to protest against the three officials he alleges planned his attack until they resign.

    “As long as these three men don’t resign, you have to protest, against unfairness, you must do a jihad against them, jihad means to stand against injustice,” Khan said Friday.

    Khan said as soon as he recovers from his shooting attack he will resume his so-called Long March to Islamabad calling for early elections. He was on the seventh day of the nationwide tour, which started in Lahore on October 28 and was due to finish in Islamabad after winding through several Pakistani cities.

    It’s among a number of rallies the former Pakistani cricket captain has held since his ousting in April.

    Thursday’s incident is not the first time that Pakistani politicians have been attacked.

    Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007, and then-Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani survived an assassination attempt in 2008.

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  • Revelers return to Hong Kong 7s for 1st time since pandemic

    Revelers return to Hong Kong 7s for 1st time since pandemic

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    HONG KONG — Revelers returned to Hong Kong Stadium on Friday to enjoy a highly-anticipated international rugby sevens tournament for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

    It wasn’t a celebration for everyone, though, with some international fans unaware of the city’s pandemic restrictions turned away at the gates.

    The Hong Kong Sevens, a popular stop on the World Rugby Sevens Series circuit, is part of the government’s drive to restore the city’s image as a vibrant financial hub after it scrapped mandatory hotel quarantine for travelers.

    Hundreds of spectators, some in fancy dress and superhero costumes, had gathered by mid-afternoon and the crowd was expected to build up during the evening sessions.

    The city’s pandemic rules require spectators to show a photo of their rapid virus test results and scan a risk notification app upon entry. Fans were required to wear masks except when eating or drinking in their seats. The stadium in Causeway Bay will be capped at 85% of its 40,000 capacity.

    The world’s leading teams are competing in Hong Kong, where the tournament for the condensed rugby format started in the 1970s and really took hold in the 80s, accelerating rugby seven’s eventual inclusion in the Olympics in 2016.

    The two-time Olympic champion and defending World Cup Sevens champion Fijians will be in action, along with 2022 world series champion Australia, which finishes the program on Day 1 against host Hong Kong.

    Overseas patrons, who used to account for a significant percentage of ticket sales in what has always been a party-like atmosphere at the stadium, need to comply with extra rules set for arrivals, such as undergoing other COVID tests and monitoring their health. Restaurant and bar visits are not allowed during their first three days in the city.

    While some local fans and international spectators weren’t bothered by the controls, the rules proved to be an upsetting experience for others.

    Businessman Renier du Plessis from South Africa arrived in the city with three friends on Thursday to watch the tournament but he was barred from entering the stadium because he failed to meet the health code requirements.

    They were unaware of the rules partly because they bought the tickets months ago, du Plessis said.

    “It’s disappointing, you know, the fact that we cannot do anything. I’m not allowed anywhere. So where am I supposed to be for the next three days?” he said.

    Some German exchange students were already used to the precautionary rules and did not find them troublesome.

    “It’s probably one of the biggest events that we will attend in Hong Kong over our time, and we only have one month left. So we’re really looking forward to this,” 21-year-old university student Bella Müller said.

    Hong Kongers, who mostly came in groups, were excited to attend a long-awaited large scale event. IT specialist Janssen Chow, 26, was happy that he could at least eat and drink in an enjoyable atmosphere.

    “It’s already better than just sitting here,” he said.

    At a separate forum Friday, Regina Ip, a leading member of Hong Kong’s cabinet, the Executive Council, described the Hong Kong Sevens as a “test.” If the infection figures have not surged rapidly after the three-day event, she said that the city would have the conditions to further open up.

    The former British colony also kicked off a five-day “FinTech Week,” and a major financial conference that featured more than 200 global financial executives this week.

    ———

    More AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • South Korea scrambles fighter jets after detecting 180 North Korean warplanes, military says | CNN

    South Korea scrambles fighter jets after detecting 180 North Korean warplanes, military says | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    South Korea scrambled about 80 fighter jets after detecting a large number of North Korean warplanes during a four-hour period Friday, the country’s military said, in a further escalation of regional tensions.

    In a statement, the South Korean military said it spotted about 180 North Korean military aircraft between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. local time, a day after Pyongyang is believed to have conducted the failed test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

    Tensions in the Korean Peninsula began rising Monday, when the “Vigilant Storm” joint military drills began between the United States and South Korea, involving hundreds of aircraft and thousands of service members from both countries, according to the US.

    North Korea accused the allies of provocative action and on Wednesday launched 23 missiles from its east and west coasts – the most missiles it’s fired in a single day – into waters either side of the peninsula, prompting Seoul to respond with three surface-to-air missiles.

    Friday’s South Korean deployment included an unspecified number of F-35A stealth fighter jets, the statement said, and the South Korean warplanes participating in the ongoing joint maneuvers had also “maintained a readiness posture,” the South Korean military said.

    After Thursday’s suspected ICBM test, the US and South Korea announced they’d extend the drills for an extra day until November 5, a move denounced by a North Korean official as a “very dangerous and false choice,” according to state media.

    Later, after meeting with his South Korean counterpart at the Pentagon, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accused North Korea of “irresponsible and reckless activities.”

    “We’ve said before these kinds of activities are destabilizing to the region potentially. So we call on them to cease that type of activity and to begin to engage in serious dialogue,” Austin said.

    A United Nations Security Council meeting is expected to take place on Friday to discuss Pyongyang’s recent missile launches. According to a spokesperson for the US Mission to the UN, the US, UK, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway had called for an open meeting.

    In an interview on CNN on Wednesday, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield condemned North Korea’s actions, saying Pyongyang had broken multiple Security Council resolutions.

    Thomas-Greenfield said the UN would be “putting pressure” on China and Russia to improve and enhance such sanctions. She declined to say whether US President Joe Biden would raise sanctions with China’s President Xi at the G20 but said it was “on the President’s mind.”

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  • Germany’s leader and top CEOs have arrived in Beijing. They need China more than ever | CNN Business

    Germany’s leader and top CEOs have arrived in Beijing. They need China more than ever | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong/London
    CNN Business
     — 

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in China on Friday with a team of top executives and a clear message: business with the world’s second largest economy must continue.

    Scholz met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People after landing in the capital Friday morning, according to a Chinese state media account. The German chancellor is also expected to meet with Premier Li Keqiang.

    Joining Scholz for the whirl-wind one day visit is a delegation of 12 German industry titans, including the CEOs of Volkswagen

    (VLKAF)    , Deutsche Bank

    (DB)    , Siemens

    (SIEGY)     and chemicals giant BASF

    (BASFY)    , according to a person familiar with the matter. They are set to meet with Chinese companies behind closed doors.

    The group entered China without participating in the usual seven-day hotel quarantine. Images showed hazmat-clad medical workers greeting their jet at Beijing’s Capital International Airport to test the official delegation for Covid-19.

    During the Friday morning meeting between the two leaders, Xi called for Germany and China to work together amid a “complex and volatile” international situation, and said the visit would “enhance mutual understanding and trust, deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and plan for the next phase of Sino-German relations,” according to a readout from state broadcaster CCTV.

    Scholz’s visit — the first by a G7 leader to China in roughly three years — comes as Germany slides towards recession. But it has fired up concerns that the economic interests of Europe’s biggest economy are still too closely tied to those of Beijing.

    Since the invasion of Ukraine this year, Germany has been forced to ditch its long dependence on Russian energy. Now, some in Scholz’s coalition government are growing nervous about the country’s deepening ties with China. Beijing has declared its friendship with Russia has “no limits,” while China’s relations with the United States are deteriorating.

    The tension was highlighted recently by a fierce debate over a bid by Chinese state shipping giant Cosco to buy a 35% stake in the operator of one of the four terminals at the port of Hamburg. Under pressure from some members of the government, the size of the investment was limited to 24.9%.

    The potential deal has raised concerns in Germany that closer ties with China will leave critical infrastructure exposed to political pressure from Beijing, and disproportionately benefit Chinese companies.

    But Germany is hardly in a position to rock the boat with Beijing as it grapples with the challenge of reviving its struggling economy. Its consumers and companies have borne the brunt of Europe’s energy crisis, and a deep recession is looming.

    If the European Union and Germany were to decouple from China, it would lead to “large GDP losses” for the German economy, Lisandra Flach, director of the ifo Center for International Economics, told CNN Business.

    The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that a major reduction in trade between the European Union and China would shave 1% off of Germany’s GDP.

    Germany needs to shore up its export markets as ties with Russia, once its main supplier of natural gas, continue to unravel.

    When it comes to China, Germany won’t want to “lose also this market, this economic partner,” said Rafal Ulatowski, an assistant professor of political science and international studies at the University of Warsaw.

    “They [will] try to keep these relations as long as it’s possible.”

    As Western countries have imposed swingeing economic sanctions on Russia, China has publicly maintained its “neutrality” in the war while ramping up its trade with Moscow.

    That has triggered a backlash in Europe, where some companies are already becoming wary of doing business in China because of its stringent “zero Covid” restrictions.

    Pressure on Berlin is also mounting over China’s human rights record. In an open letter Wednesday, a coalition of 70 civil rights groups urged Scholz to “rethink” his trip to Beijing.

    “The invitation of a German trade delegation to join your visit will be viewed as an indication that Germany is ready to deepen trade and economic links, at the cost of human rights and international law,” they wrote in the memo, published by the World Uyghur Congress. Based in Germany, the organization is run by Uyghurs raising awareness of allegations of genocide in China’s Xinjiang region.

    It suggested Berlin was “loosening economic dependence on one authoritarian power, only to deepen economic dependence on another.”

    In an op-ed published in a German newspaper on Wednesday, Scholz said he would use his visit to “address difficult issues,” including “respect for civil and political liberties and the rights of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province.”

    A spokesperson for the German government addressed wider criticism last week, saying at a press conference that it had no intention of “decoupling” from its most important trading partner.

    “[The chancellor] has basically said again and again that he is not a friend of decoupling, or turning away, from China. But he also says: diversify and minimize risk,” the spokesperson said.

    Last year, China was Germany’s biggest trading partner for the sixth year in a row, with the value of trade up over 15% from 2020, according to official statistics. Together, Chinese imports from, and exports to, Germany were worth €245 billion ($242 billion) in 2021.

    Still, the furore surrounding the Hamburg port deal is a reminder of the tradeoffs Germany has to confront if it wants to maintain close ties with such a vital export market and supplier.

    A spokesperson for Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA), the company operating the port terminal, told CNN Business on Thursday that it was still negotiating the deal with Cosco.

    Flach, of the ifo Center for International Economics, said the deal warranted scrutiny because “there is no reciprocity: Germany cannot invest in Chinese ports, for instance.”

    A container ship from Cosco Shipping moored at the Tollerort Container Terminal owned by HHLA, in the harbor of Hamburg, Germany on Oct. 26.

    However, it is easy to overstate the impact of the potential agreement, said Alexander-Nikolai Sandkamp, assistant professor of economics at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

    “We’re not talking about a 25% stake in the Hamburg harbor, or even the operator of the harbor, but a 25% stake in the operator of a terminal,” he told CNN Business.

    Jürgen Matthes, head of global and regional markets at the German Economic Institute, told CNN Business that critics were no longer simply weighing the business benefits of Chinese investment in the country.

    “Politics and economics have to be looked at together and cannot be taken separately any longer,” he said. “When geopolitics comes into play, the view of China has very much declined and become much more negative.”

    China’s recent treatment of Lithuania has also deepened concerns that Beijing “does not hesitate to simply break trade rules,” Matthes added. The small, Eastern European nation claimed last year that Beijing had erected trade barriers in retaliation for its support for Taiwan.

    China has defended its downgrading of relations with Lithuania, saying it is acting in response to the European nation undermining its “sovereignty and territorial integrity.” This year, after a Lithuanian official visited Taiwan, Beijing also announced sanctions against her and vowed to “suspend all forms of exchange” with her ministry.

    As the German delegation touches down on Friday, they will be faced with another issue, which has become the single biggest headache for companies across China.

    “The biggest challenge for German businesses remains China’s zero-Covid policy,” said Maximilian Butek of the German Chamber of Commerce in China.

    “The restrictions are suffocating economic growth and heavily impact China’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign direct investment,” he told CNN Business.

    An aerial view of the urban landscape in Shanghai on Sept. 25. The city underwent a months-long Covid lockdown earlier this year.

    He said the broader restrictions were so stifling that some companies had moved their regional headquarters to other locations, such as Singapore. “Managing the whole region without being able to travel freely is almost impossible,” he added.

    In a brief statement, Volkswagen told CNN Business that its CEO was attending the trip since “there have been no direct meetings for almost three years” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

    “In view of the completely changed geopolitical and global economic situation, the trip to Beijing offers the opportunity for a personal exchange of views,” the automaker said.

    Despite Beijing’s Covid curbs and geopolitical tensions, Germany has every economic incentive to stay close to China.

    Its dependency on China can be seen across industries. While about 12% of total imports came from China last year, the country was responsible for 80% of imported laptops and 70% of mobile phones, Sandkamp said.

    The automobile, chemical and electrical industries are also reliant on Chinese trade.

    “If we were to stop trading with China, we would run into trouble,” Sandkamp added.

    China made up 40% of Volkswagen’s worldwide deliveries in the first three quarters of this year, and it’s also the top market for other automakers such as Mercedes.

    Wariness among some German officials over the country’s closeness with China could filter into a more restrictive trade policy, though economic cooperation is still in both parties’ interests.

    Last week, Germany’s economy minister Robert Habeck told Reuters that the government was efforting a new trade policy with China to reduce dependence on Chinese raw materials, batteries and semiconductors.

    Unidentified sources also told the news agency that the ministry was weighing new rules that would make business with China less attractive. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment from CNN Business.

    But “despite all odds and challenges, China remains unrivaled in terms of market size and market growth opportunities for many German companies,” said Butek, of the German Chamber.

    He predicted that “the large majority will stay committed to the Chinese market and is expecting to expand their business.”

    Companies appear to be toeing that line. Last week, BASF CEO Martin Brudermüller was quoted in Chinese state media as saying that Germans should “step away from China-bashing and look at ourselves a bit self-critically.”

    “We benefit from China’s policies of widening market access,” he said at a company event, according to state-run news agency Xinhua, pointing to the construction of a BASF chemical engineering site in southern China.

    — CNN’s Simone McCarthy, Chris Stern, Lauren Kent, Claudia Otto and Arnaud Siad contributed to this report.

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  • Death of boy in lockdown fuels backlash against China’s zero-Covid policy | CNN

    Death of boy in lockdown fuels backlash against China’s zero-Covid policy | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    The death of a 3-year-old boy following a suspected gas leak at a locked down residential compound in northwestern China has triggered a fresh wave of outrage at the country’s stringent zero-Covid policy.

    The boy’s father claimed in a social media post that Covid workers tried to prevent him from leaving their compound in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province, to seek treatment for his child – causing a delay that he believes proved fatal.

    A social media post by the father on Wednesday about his son’s death was met with an outpouring of public anger and grief, with several related hashtags racking up hundreds of millions of views over the following day on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

    “Three years of pandemic was his entire life,” a popular comment read.

    It’s the latest tragedy to have fueled a growing backlash against China’s unrelenting zero-Covid policy, which continues to upend daily life with incessant lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing mandates even as the rest of the world moves on from the pandemic.

    Numerous similar cases have involved people dying after being denied prompt access to emergency medical care during lockdowns – despite the insistence of Chinese officials, including leader Xi Jinping, that the country’s Covid policies “put people and their lives first.”

    Large parts of Lanzhou, including the neighborhood where the boy’s family live, have been locked down since early October.

    The boy’s father said his wife and child both fell ill around noon on Tuesday, showing signs of gas poisoning. The mother’s condition improved after receiving CPR from the father, but the boy fell into a coma, according to the man’s social media post.

    The father said he made numerous attempts to call both an ambulance and the police but failed to get through. He said he then went to plead for help from Covid workers who were enforcing the lockdown at their compound, but was rejected and told to seek help from officials in his community or keep calling for an ambulance himself.

    He said the workers asked him to show a negative Covid test result, but he could not do so as no tests had been carried out at the compound in the previous 10 days.

    He grew desperate and eventually carried his son outside, where a “kind-hearted” resident called a taxi to take them to hospital, he wrote.

    However, it was too late by the time they arrived and the doctors failed to save his son.

    “My child might have been saved if he had been taken to the hospital sooner,” he wrote.

    According to online maps, the hospital is just 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) away from the boy’s home – a 10-minute drive.

    The father claimed in his social media post that the police did not show up until after he had taken his son to hospital. But the local police said in a statement late on Tuesday that they had immediately rushed to the scene after receiving a call for help from the public, and helped send two people, including the child, to hospital 14 minutes later.

    The police statement said the child had died of carbon monoxide poisoning and the mother remained in hospital in a stable condition – but it made no mention of whether lockdown measures had delayed their treatment.

    CNN contacted both Lanzhou officials and the boy’s father for comment. The father did not respond.

    On Thursday, Lanzhou authorities issued a statement expressing grief for the child’s death and condolences to his family. They vowed to “seriously deal with” officials and work units that had failed to facilitate a timely rescue for the boy.

    “We have learned a painful lesson from this incident … and will put people and their lives first in our work in the future,” the statement said.

    The boy’s death also ignited anger from local residents. Videos circulating on social media show residents taking to the streets to demand an answer from authorities.

    One shows a woman shouting at officials wrapped head to toe in hazmat suits. “Ask your leader to come here and tell us what happened today,” she shouts. In another, a man chants, “Give me back my freedom!”

    Other videos show several buses containing SWAT police officers arriving at the scene.

    One shows rows of officers in hazmat suits marching down the street; several others show residents in a standoff with uniformed police officers who are holding shields and wearing helmets and masks.

    CNN cannot independently verify the videos, but a resident who lives nearby confirmed to CNN he saw the SWAT team police moving in.

    “They shouted ‘one, two, one’ (when they marched down the street) so loudly they could be heard from 500 meters away,” the resident said.

    He lamented Lanzhou’s “excessive epidemic prevention and lockdowns” and what he said was increasingly stringent censorship.

    “Now, even knowing the truth has become an extravagant hope,” he said. “Who knows how many similar incidents have happened across the country?”

    In his social media post, the father said he was approached by someone who claimed to work for a “civil organization” and was offered 100,000 yuan (about $14,000) on the condition that he signed an agreement vowing not to seek accountability from the authorities.

    “I didn’t sign it. All I want is an explanation (for my son’s death),” he wrote. “I want (them) to tell me directly, why wouldn’t they let me go at the time?”

    The father’s posts on Weibo and Baidu, another online site, recounting the incident both disappeared late on Wednesday night.

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  • Starbucks reports record Q4 revenue despite China declines

    Starbucks reports record Q4 revenue despite China declines

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    Pumpkin spice pumped up Starbucks‘ sales in its fiscal fourth quarter, and the company said it’s confident that momentum will carry on into next year.

    Starbucks’ revenue rose 3% to a record $8.41 billion in the July-September period. The company said Thursday it saw its highest-ever sales week in September when it introduced its fall drinks. Sales of both hot and cold pumpkin spice drinks jumped 17% during the quarter.

    Starbucks shares rose nearly 2% in after-hours trading.

    Customers shrugged off higher prices and continued to pay extra for specialty drinks and snacks. Starbucks noted that 60% of the beverages it sells are now customized with flavor shots, foam and other extras.

    “There is an affordable luxury to Starbucks that our customer base has been willing to support,” Starbucks’ interim CEO Howard Schultz said Thursday in a conference call with investors. Schultz said the company raised prices around 6% over the last year.

    The Seattle coffee giant said its same-store sales —— or sales at locations open at least a year —— were up 7% worldwide in the July-September period. That beat Wall Street’s forecast of a 4.2% increase, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

    North American strength offset weakness in China, where pandemic lockdowns are still impacting sales.

    Same-store sales jumped 11% in North America, driven by a 10% increase in spending per visit. Same-store sales in China, Starbucks’ second-largest market after the U.S., fell 16%. Still, Starbucks noted that was significantly better than the third quarter, when China’s same-store sales plunged 44%.

    “We are encouraged by the early signs of recovery we saw in China,” Schultz said.

    Starbucks said it expects global same-store sales will rise between 7% and 9% in its 2023 fiscal year, compared to 8% in the fiscal year that just ended. Schultz said he’s confident the company can meet that goal because of its strong rewards program and its increasingly younger and very loyal customer base. Schultz said more than half of Starbucks’ customers are Millennials or Generation Z.

    Starbucks said its net income fell 50% to $878 million in the three-month period that ended Oct. 2 as it invested in store remodels and employee wages. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned 81 cents per share. That also beat Wall Street’s forecast of 72 cents.

    Starbucks has been spending heavily on a plan to boost U.S. store efficiency and employee morale as it tries to head off a growing unionization movement, which it opposes. At least 249 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned U.S. stores have voted to unionize since late last year.

    At an investor meeting in September, Starbucks announced it will invest $450 million next year to make its North American stores more efficient and less complex. Employees have struggled with rising demand for customizable cold drinks —— they now make up 76% of U.S. drink sales —— in store kitchens designed for simpler hot drinks.

    Sara Trilling, Starbucks’ executive vice president for North America, said the company has already rolled out hand-held cold foamers, new espresso machines and new warming ovens to the majority of its company-owned U.S. stores.

    The company also announced a $1 billion investment in employee wages and benefits last fall and added $200 million more for pay, worker training and other benefits in May.

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  • Former Prime Minister Imran Khan shot in foot in reported assassination attempt in Pakistan | CNN

    Former Prime Minister Imran Khan shot in foot in reported assassination attempt in Pakistan | CNN

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    Islamabad, Pakistan
    CNN
     — 

    Pakistan’s ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan was shot in the foot at a rally Thursday, according to an official from his party, which said the incident was an assassination attempt.

    A bullet hit Khan in his foot after a gunman opened fire, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) senior leader Asad Umar said.

    The former Pakistan cricket captain was taken from the rally site just outside the town of Gujranwala to receive treatment in Lahore.

    Police said they detained a man suspected of firing shots at the rally. The male suspect was arrested with a 9mm pistol and two empty magazines, police said.

    At least one person was killed in the incident, according to Faisal Javed, a senior PTI politician and close Khan ally who received a wound to the head in the attack. The victim’s name has not been released.

    In a video statement Javed, who can be seen sitting up while receiving treatment, said: “Please pray for us, for Imran Khan, pray for our fellow workers who are severely injured and pray for our party member who has died and is martyred.”

    At least two other people were injured by gunfire.

    Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who came to power after Khan lost a parliamentary vote of no confidence in April, condemned Thursday’s attack on his political rival on Twitter.

    “I condemn the incident of firing on PTI Chairman Imran Khan in the strongest words,” Sharif wrote, adding that he has asked for an “immediate report on the incident” and will pray for the recovery of those injured.

    “Violence should have no place in our country’s politics,” Sharif wrote.

    On October 21, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) recommended that Khan be disqualified from holding political office for five years, a move likely to further inflame political tensions in the country.

    imran khan map

    While reading out the recommendation, ECP chief Sikandar Sultan Raja stated that Khan was disqualified for being involved in “corrupt practices.”

    The commission said its decision was based on the grounds that Khan had “made false statements” regarding the declaration of the sale of gifts sent to him by the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Dubai while in office – an offense that is illegal under the country’s constitution.

    Khan was unseated in a vote of no-confidence following claims of bad governance and economic mismanagement.

    Since then he has repeatedly claimed, without providing any evidence, that the United States had orchestrated his ouster. Khan’s allegations have become a staple at rallies he has held across Pakistan in a bid to return to power.

    His claims have struck a chord with a young population in a country where anti-American sentiment runs high, and anti-establishment feelings are being fueled by a rising cost of living crisis.

    This is not the first time that Pakistani politicians have been attacked.

    Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007, and then Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani survived an assassination attempt in 2008.

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  • Official: Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan wounded in gun attack

    Official: Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan wounded in gun attack

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    ISLAMABAD — A gunman opened fire at a campaign truck carrying Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday, wounding him slightly and also some of his supporters, a senior leader from his party and police said.

    Party official Asad Umar said Khan was wounded in the leg and was not seriously hurt. The identity of the gunman, who was arrested at the scene, was not immediately known. No group has claimed responsibility for the shooting.

    According to police, the attack happened in the Wazirabad district in the eastern Punjab province where Khan was traveling in a large convoy of trucks and cars heading towards the capital, Islamabad, as part of his campaign aimed at forcing the government to hold early elections.

    The motives of the attacker were unknown, and it was also unclear whether the shooting was an attempt on Khan’s life.

    The shooting underscored the growing political instability in Pakistan, with both the government and Khan — a former cricket star turned Islamist politician — refusing to back down from their positions. The country’s powerful military has said that although Khan had a democratic right to hold a rally in Islamabad, no one will be allowed to destabilize the country. Authorities in Islamabad have already deployed additional security around the city to deter any clashes or violence.

    Khan with later seen with a bandage on his right leg, just above the foot, according to reports and a blurry image. He was moved to another vehicle from his container truck, from where announcements were being made that he was safe.

    “He is being taken to a hospital in Lahore, but he is not seriously wounded. A bullet hit him in the leg,” Umar told reporters. According to the Interior Ministry, the government has ordered a probe into the incident.

    An unspecified number of supporters from his Tehreek-e-Insaf party who were part of the march were also wounded, according to the announcement from the party.

    The attack happened less than a week after Khan began his march from Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, along with thousands of supporters.

    Since his ouster in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April, Khan has alleged that his ouster was a conspiracy engineered by his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, and the United States — claims that both the new premier and Washington have denied.

    Sharif’s government has also said that there would be no early vote and that the next elections will be held according to schedule, in 2023.

    Khan’s latest challenge to the government comes after Pakistan’s elections commission disqualified him from holding public office for five years for allegedly selling state gifts unlawfully and concealing assets as premier.

    Khan, who has challenged the disqualification in a pending court case, has said he would sue Chief Election Commissioner Sikandara Raja, who was behind the decision, for calling him a “dishonest person.”

    It was also not immediately known if Khan’s convoy would proceed on to Islamabad. Earlier, Fawad Chaudhry, a senior leader in Khan’s party, had said they plan to enter Islamabad on Friday.

    The attack also comes at a time when impoverished Pakistan is grappling with the aftermath of unprecedented floods that struck this Islamic nation over the summer, killing 1,735 people and displacing 33 million.

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  • South Korea star Son Heung-Min suffers fractured eye and faces race to be fit for World Cup | CNN

    South Korea star Son Heung-Min suffers fractured eye and faces race to be fit for World Cup | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Son Heung-Min’s hopes of playing at the World Cup later this month are in doubt after Tottenham confirmed the South Korean star will need surgery on a fracture around his left eye.

    The 30-year-old suffered the injury during Tottenham’s Champions League win against Marseille on Tuesday and now faces a race to be fit for Qatar 2022 which starts on November 20.

    Son was caught in the face when challenging for a header with Chancel Mbemba and was treated on the pitch during a lengthy delay to the game.

    He was then helped off the pitch by the club’s medical staff but looked very disoriented as he did so.

    Tottenham went on to win the game 2-1 to secure top spot in the group and progression into the knockout stages of the competition.

    “We can confirm that Heung-Min Son will undergo surgery to stabilise a fracture around his left eye,” Tottenham said in a statement on Wednesday.

    “Following surgery, Son will commence rehabilitation with our medical staff and we shall update supporters further in due course.”

    The club stopped short of giving a time frame for Son’s return but there is precedent for players returning from such an injury within three weeks.

    Kevin De Bruyne suffered a fractured eye while playing for Manchester City in the 2021 Champions League final and was back playing for Belgium at the European Championships within 21 days.

    South Korea begins its World Cup campaign against Uruguay on November 24 and will be desperate for its captain and best player to be fit in time.

    A host of other stars are also racing to be fit for the tournament in Qatar.

    England’s Ben Chilwell limped off the pitch with an apparent hamstring injury during Chelsea’s Champions League win against Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday but the extent of the damage is not yet clear.

    It comes shortly after Paul Pogba’s agent confirmed he would miss the tournament through injury.

    The midfielder’s France teammate Raphael Varane is also a doubt after limping off in tears during Manchester United’s draw against Chelsea last month.

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  • FCC commissioner calls for TikTok ban | CNN Business

    FCC commissioner calls for TikTok ban | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    The US government should ban TikTok rather than come to a national security agreement with the social media app that might allow it to continue operating in the United States, according to Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission.

    A string of news reports this year about TikTok’s handling of US user data has left Carr with “little confidence there’s a path forward,” he told CNN in a phone interview Tuesday. “Perhaps the deal CFIUS ends up cutting is an amazing, airtight deal, but at this point I have a very, very difficult time looking at TikTok’s conduct thinking we’re going to cut a technical construct that they’re not going to find a way around.”

    The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a multi-agency government body charged with reviewing business deals involving foreign ownership, has spent months negotiating with TikTok on a proposal to resolve concerns that Chinese government authorities could seek to gain access to the data TikTok holds on US citizens. This year the company said it had migrated its US user data to servers run by Oracle, but concerns have persisted over whether China-based employees of TikTok or its parent, ByteDance, will still be able to access that information. Those bipartisan fears were again raised in September, when under pressure from US lawmakers, TikTok declined to commit to cutting off data flows to China.

    “Commissioner Carr has no role in or direct knowledge of the confidential discussions with the US government related to TikTok and is not in a position to discuss what those negotiations entail” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. “We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the US government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns.”

    Carr, who spoke to CNN from Taiwan during a first-ever visit by an FCC official to that country, said he has not met with CFIUS member agencies or the White House to specifically raise the issue, though he added the topic could have arisen incidentally amid other routine discussions.

    Carr’s call for a TikTok ban was first reported by Axios, and the remarks expand on his earlier calls for Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their respective app stores.

    Carr acknowledged that as an FCC official, his own capacity to regulate TikTok is limited; CFIUS, the Commerce Department or the Federal Trade Commission may have greater legal authority over the company, he said.

    Still, Carr said his call for a TikTok ban reflects a “natural progression in my thinking” and is informed by his own agency’s work to limit China’s influence in US telecommunications networks. The FCC has taken numerous steps to block or ban Chinese-affiliated telecom companies from selling equipment or services in the United States, over allegations that those companies could also be compelled to give up the data they hold on US communications to the Chinese government.

    “For me, this is taking what I’ve learned in the Huawei, ZTE, China Mobile context, where we’re looking at possibly nefarious data flows, and bringing it to bear in terms of this issue,” Carr said.

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  • Australian police offer $633,000 reward for Indian suspect

    Australian police offer $633,000 reward for Indian suspect

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    CANBERRA, Australia — Australian police offered a 1 million Australian dollar ($633,000) reward on Thursday for information on the whereabouts of an Indian national who is suspected of murdering a woman on a tropical beach four years ago before returning to his homeland.

    Queensland state police officers who speak Hindi and Punjabi are waiting in an office in Cairns to be contacted from India via WhatsApp or online about where Rajwinder Singh, 38, can be found, Detective Inspector Sonia Smith said.

    Singh was a nurse working at Innisfail, south of Cairns, when the body of 24-year-old Toyah Cordingley was found on Wangetti Beach on Monday, Oct. 22, 2018.

    She had gone to the beach, north of Cairns, to walk her dog the day before.

    Singh flew from Cairns to Sydney the day Cordingley’s body was found and left for India the following day, police said.

    The reward is the largest in Queensland’s history and unique in that it does not seek a clue that solves a crime and leads to a successful prosecution. Instead, the money is offered for information that leads only to a suspect’s location and arrest.

    Police Minister Mark Ryan approved the reward and was confident people knew where Singh could be found.

    “We know that people know this person, they know where this person is and we’re asking those people to do the right thing,” Ryan said.

    “Now, there is a million reasons for a billion eyes around the world to help us deliver justice for Toyah,” he added.

    Deputy Police Commissioner Tracy Lindford said detectives believed Singh remained in India. She appealed for witnesses among India’s population of 1.4 billion people to come forward and “give some respite to the family who miss Toyah.”

    Three Queensland detectives were already in India working with Indian authorities on the investigation, Smith said.

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