China would like to enhance strategic communication and deepen cooperation with Myanmar
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Minor earthquake in Beijing “normal, isolated event”
A 2.9-magnitude earthquake at a depth of 17 kilometers was detected at 1:25 pm on Sunday in Be
ijing’s Haidian district, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.
Two earthquake experts said the minor quake was a normal activity in the
earth’s crust caused by changes in crustal stress, and th
ere is no need for the public to panic, according to a report on huanqiu.com.
“It is a normal and isolated event,” said Guo Xun, dean of the Civil Engineering
School at the Institute of Disaster Prevention.
“As Beijing is at the junction of the earthquake zones of Shanxi province, the
Hebei Plain and Yanshan Mountain, the city will e
xperience one to two earthquakes at around magnitude-3 degree every year,
according to past exper
ience,” Sun Shihong, a researcher at the
China Earthquake Networks Center, added.
Third, there is a serious focus on education overall. Ove
the past five years, China has built or expanded 260,000 primary and secondary schools, added 1.7 million teache
rs and increased the student body by 27.3 million. The Ministry of Education committed more resources last y
ear to poverty-stricken areas to ensure every child is able to attend school by 2020.
Beyond easing dire poverty in rural areas, China has an ongoing pa
rallel policy to build a moderately prosperous society by 2020, a crucial aspect of which is set
ting up a basic social security system. This has been done progressively since the 1980s.
China also has had several social insurance programs since the 1990s, covering unemployment, employment injury, mat
ernity, medical care and pension. The country subsequently embarked on a new and successful phase of so
cial security development to provide healthcare benefits to rural and nonworking urban residents.
Theresa May asks EU for Brexit delayIn his press conference, Don
the President of the European Council, made it clear that the EU would only
approve a delay to the Brexit process if the House of Commons approves the Withdra
wal Agreement signed by Theresa May last year. That suggests a third “meaningful vote” must be held in Parliament next week.
another vote. Earlier this week he ruled that the government could not hold repeated votes on the same issue without substantive changes.
The government will hope that Tusk’s statement will be sufficient to satisfy Bercow’s demand.
After that, there’s the question of persuading MPs to support the deal.
Theresa May lost her first meaningful vote by a historic margin of 230 in January, and lost her second last week by 149.
May faces an uphill challenge to pass the deal a third time – 75 MPs will have to change their mind
s. The Prime Minister will hope that the looming and clear threat of no deal will force opposition MPs to support her deal.
The trouble is, there’s a small group of hardcore Brexit-supporting MPs o
n her own side who would be happy to see the UK crash out without a deal – a clean bre
ak from the EU with no complications. Quite how she persuades them to get onside is unclear.
Mikaela Shiffrin extends record run as Marcel Hirscher hints
She’s ski racing’s undoubted new queen, but Mikaela Shiffrin finished the
slalom season in regal fashion with victory in the final race in Andorra.
The 24-year-old clinched her 16th win of a record-breaking season
Saturday to take her tally to 59 World Cup titles overall.
The victory was also her 40th slalom win to equal the record of Swedish great
Ingemar Stenmark, who heads the all-time list with 86 World Cup wins.
Overall champion Shiffrin, who topped the slalom standings from Slovakia’s P
etra Vlhova and Swiss Wendy Holdener,
is hot favorite to clinch the giant slalom crystal globe Sunday.
The American has a 97-point lead over Vlhova, with 100 points available to the winner in Andorra.
Shiffrin, who passed Vreni Schneider’s mark of 14 wins in a season
earlier this month, could become the first skier — mal
e or female — to win the World Cup title in overall, slalom, giant slalom and the
faster super-G discipline in the same season.
She secured a third straight World Cup overall crown earlier this season and first super-G c
rystal globe to add to a fourth consecutive slalom world title in Sweden last month. She also won super-G gold in Are.
Ministers are taking questions from the media about the
most pressing public issues. This is the second ministers’ “passage interviews” of this year’s two sessions.
Passage interviews got their name because they usually take place on walkways leadi
ng to the main hall of the Great Hall of the People before or after plenary meetings of the National People’s Co
ngress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
China’s financial sector is striving to solve the financing difficulties
of private enterprises and reducing their costs, said Guo Shuqing, Party secretary of the Peo
ple’s Bank of China and chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
“The efforts to step up support for private enterprises are closely related to the supply-side
structural reform of the financial sector. We are making adjustments in terms of financial ins
titution, market and product systems,” said Guo during an interview on Tuesday.
China will continue taking new steps in financial opening-up thi
s year, over which Sino-US trade talks are very likely to reach a consensus, Guo added.
using security concerns to harm Chinese companies, NPC sposays
It is neither fair nor ethical for US government officials to play up so-called security risks associat
ed with Chinese companies and linking them to China’s National Intelligence Law, Zhang Yesui, spok
esman for the National People’s Congress said at a press conference on Monday in Beijing.
This kind of behavior was interrupting economic activities with politica
l means and violated World Trade Organization rules and damaged fair competition, he said.
“This is typical double standards,” he said.
The purpose of China’s National Intelligence Law, Zhang said, is not to underm
ine other countries’ security interests, but to strengthen and safeguard national security.
It is an internationally accepted practice to protect national security throu
gh legislation and there are similar laws in the United States and Europe, he said, ad
ding that China has learnt from the practice of other countries during the legislative process for this law.
He also said that the Chinese government has repeatedly expressed its hope that countrie
s should abide by fair competition and provide a non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies.
China has been pulling off a delicate diplomatic balanc
ing act in South Asia in the past year, after easing some regional tensions.
In July 2017, for example, there was a heated month-long territorial standoff between Chinese and Indian troops in Doklam, near the borders of India, China and Bhutan.
The two powers nearly came to blows over accusations the Chinese gov
ernment was building a road inside the territory of close Indian ally Bhutan.
Nearby, China also conducted live-fire drills with combat troops.
But a warm, informal summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Pri
me Minister Narendra Modi in April 2018 helped put relations back on a positive track.
”The common interests of China and India far outweigh
their differences,” state-run newspaper China Daily said in an editorial at the time.
The situation is much clearer for China across the border. Pakistan is a longtime f
riend and trading partner of Beijing, described by Chin
ese diplomats as enjoying an “all-weather friendship” with the country.
Pakistan is also one of the largest buyers of Beijing’s weapons. Between 2008 and
2017, Islamabad purchased more than $6 billion of Chinese arms, according to think tank CSIS.
It hasn’t all been easy sailing, however. Questions have been raised about the
large debts Pakistan has accrued as a result of Chinese government loans and infrastructure.
But Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has been determined to keep the special rela
tionship with Beijing strong. “We need to use China as an inspiration to lift our people out of poverty,” he said.
Kim, Trump end 2nd summit without deal in Hanoi, Vietnam
A gap remained between what the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) wanted and what the United States wanted, US President Donald Trump said
at a press conference on Thursday, explaining the no-deal end to his second summit with the DPRK’s top leader Kim Jong-un.
Trump and Kim started the two-day summit Wednesday night with a brief one-on-one chat and a dinner and continu
ed their discussions the following day on concrete ways for peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The two leaders were originally scheduled to share events — a working lunch and a sig
ning ceremony for a possible joint statement — at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, but the
events were cancelled with no agreement reached, according to the White House.
After coming back to the J. W. Marriot Hotel, Trump told the press conference that Kim had a c
ertain vision which was not exactly the same as his, though their visions got “much closer” than they were a year ago.
“We have to walk… There is a gap,” Trump said.
There are no comments available from the DPRK for now.
Beijing said on Thursday it hopes dialogue between Pyongyang and Wash
ington will continue after the two sides failed to reach an agreement at their summit in Vietnam.
Boeing 767 cargo jetliner crashes near Houston airport
NEW YORK — A Boeing 767 cargo jetliner with three people on board crashed into a bay near Housto