BEIJING: British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday called for expanding the “global strategic partnership” between the United Kingdom and China, at the start of a visit to the world’s second-largest economy focused on hashing out new trade arrangements once the UK leaves the European Union.
Meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, May referred to “a golden era” in relations between the two countries that London hopes will bring vast amounts of new job-creating investment from China’s fast-growing global firms.
“This is an auspicious time of the year to ... think about and consider how we can build further on that golden era and on the global strategic partnership that we have been working on between the UK and China,” May said.
Officials oversaw the signing of a raft of agreements covering trade — including the import of British food products to China — investment, education and other areas. More than 155,000 Chinese students now study in the UK, according to the British government.
Brexit appeared to figure prominently in the talks and May said that as Britain prepares to leave the EU “we are committed to deepening our strong and vital partnership” with China.
“And that relationship is indeed broad and deep and delivers benefits to both countries,” May said.
As Britain prepares to leave the EU, “we will become a country that is able to operate an independent trade policy and is able to sign free trade agreements around the rest of the world,” she said at a later question-and-answer session with Li.
Li said Brexit would not change the basic trading relationship.
“In EU-UK relations. We will have assessments and discussions in our trade relationship to take it forward,” Li said.
As she makes her China visit, May’s job is under threat from rivals within her Conservative Party, who are divided over whether to make a clean break with the EU or seek to keep the closest-possible economic relationship.
May insisted to reporters flying with her to China, “I’m not a quitter.”
She said there was “a long-term job to be done” by her government, according to the Press Association news agency.
“That job is about getting the best Brexit deal, it’s about ensuring that we take back control of our money, our laws, our borders, that we can sign trade deals around the rest of the world,” she said. “But it’s also about our domestic agenda.”
In her meeting with Li, May said the two countries, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, were also cooperating on North Korea and other security challenges. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, she said, is “illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security.”
Li said they also discussed overcapacity in the steel industry, while May said an agreement had been reached to open China to imports of British beef this year. Business deals worth more than 9 billion pounds ($13 billion) would be announced before the end of the visit, May said.
May also expressed support for British involvement in the “Belt and Road” initiative, China’s mega-plan for trade and infrastructure links across Asia.
However, she said related projects needed to adhere to established global business practices. Beijing has been criticized for undermining those rules by agreeing to finance major infrastructure projects on condition they were awarded to Chinese companies without entertaining bids from competitors.
“We’ve discussed how the UK and China will continue to work together to identify how best we can cooperate on the Belt and Road initiative across the region and ensure it meets international standards,” May said.
“We will work together to encourage free and fair trade, ensure a transparent, rules-based multilateral trading system, and build an open global economy that works for all.”
May first visited the central industrial city of Wuhan on Wednesday before traveling to Beijing for talks with Li. On Thursday, she is scheduled to meet with President Xi Jinping, whose 2015 state visit to Britain helped propel what China refers to as the golden era in ties.
May is being accompanied on her visit by 50 British business leaders, including the chief executives of Jaguar Land Rover and drug firm AstraZeneca. She will also visit the financial hub of Shanghai before heading home Friday.
Bolstering ties with China became more urgent after Britain voted in 2016 to leave the EU, compelling it to forge new trade agreements outside of the 28-nation bloc.
British exports to China are up 60 percent since 2010, and China is expected to be one of the UK’s biggest foreign investors by 2020.
British finance minister Philip Hammond visited in December, pledging to promote London as a center for transactions in China’s yuan currency and announcing up to 25 billion pounds ($35 billion) in support for British businesses involved in the Belt and Road initiative.
But May appears more cautious about embracing Chinese investment than her predecessor, David Cameron. She annoyed Beijing in 2016 by temporarily delaying approval for a Chinese-backed nuclear power plant in southwestern England.
On China visit, Britain’s Theresa May focused on post-Brexit future
On China visit, Britain’s Theresa May focused on post-Brexit future
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Saudi-based doctor receives highest award for overseas Indians
- Dr. Syed Anwar Khursheed among 27 awardees of this year’s Pravasi Bharatiya Samman
- He has served at King Faisal Hospital in Taif and as Royal Protocol physician in Riyadh
NEW DELHI: Dr. Syed Anwar Khursheed, one of the longest-serving Indian physicians in Saudi Arabia, received on Friday the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, the highest honor conferred by India’s president on nationals based overseas.
Dr. Khursheed was born in Gulbarga city in the southwestern state of Karnataka and has spent most of his professional life — more than 40 years — in the Kingdom.
He has served for three decades at King Faisal Hospital in Taif and nearly a decade as a Royal Protocol physician in Riyadh, was involved in the COVID-19 response, and has overseen critical care operations and medical assistance to Hajj pilgrims.
He has also contributed to education, founding the International Indian School in Taif, and provided guidance on the establishment of other schools for the Indian community in Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Khursheed usually travels to India twice a year to see his relatives and hometown, but this time the visit is different, coming with a recognition that he did not expect.
“My heart rate is higher this time,” he told Arab News, as he arrived in India to take part in the ceremony in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
“I really felt excited, thrilled when the award was announced. I was not in the race for the award. I am aware of the honor associated with the award, the prestige it has ... I will be joining an elite club of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman awardees and meet top-level personalities from around the globe. It’s a lifetime achievement.”
Established in 2003, the annual award celebrates the exceptional contributions of overseas Indians in various fields, including medicine, community service, education, business and public affairs.
Dr. Khursheed is among 27 recipients of this year’s Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, and the only one based in Saudi Arabia. He received the award from President Droupadi Murmu.
“Dr. Syed Anwar Khursheed is a distinguished physician with 45 years of experience in public health care and is one of the longest-serving physicians in the government sector. Having spent three decades at the King Faisal Hospital, he was a part of the Medical Protocol Department of the Royal Saudi Family for eight years. He also oversaw critical care operations in the Hajj program at Minah and Arafat,” Suhel Ajaz Khan, India’s ambassador to the Kingdom, told Arab News.
“The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award to Dr. Syed Anwar Khursheed is a matter of great pride for the Indian diaspora in Saudi Arabia, since it is the highest honor conferred on overseas Indians by the Hon’ble President of India. The award has recognized Dr. Khursheed’s outstanding achievements in the field of medical science and health care, and his long-standing contribution to the welfare of the Indian community in Saudi Arabia.”
More than 2.65 million Indians live and work in Saudi Arabia. They constitute the second-largest Indian community in the Middle East after the UAE.
Among the previous recipients of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award from Saudi Arabia are Dr. Majid Kazi, personal physician to King Fahd bin Abdulaziz, who was honored with Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2006, and Rafiuddin Fazulbhoy, social worker and the founder of Indian International School in Jeddah, who received it in 2008.
In 2011, the award was conferred to renowned pediatrician Dr. M.S. Karimuddin, and in 2014 to Shihab Kottukad, a social worker engaged in assisting the poorest Indian laborers in the Kingdom.
Educationist Zeenat Jafri, who started the first Indian school in Riyadh, was awarded Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in 2017. In 2021, the recognition was granted to Dr. Siddeek Ahmed, investor and philanthropist based in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
Kremlin says Putin ready for talks with Trump
- Incoming US president has said he can bring a swift end to the nearly three-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine
- Washington has delivered tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its military offensive
MSOCOW: The Kremlin said Friday that President Vladimir Putin was open to talks with Donald Trump, after the incoming US president said a meeting between the pair was being set up.
Trump, who will be inaugurated on January 20, has said he can bring a swift end to the nearly three-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine, without presenting a concrete plan.
“The president has repeatedly stated his openness to contact with international leaders, including the US president, including Donald Trump,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Trump on Thursday said a meeting with Putin was being arranged.
“He wants to meet, and we’re setting it up,” Trump said at a meeting with Republican governors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
“President Putin wants to meet, he’s said that even publicly, and we have to get that war over with, that’s a bloody mess,” he said.
The Kremlin welcomed Trump’s “readiness to solve problems through dialogue,” Peskov said Friday, adding Moscow had no prerequisites for staging the meeting.
“No conditions are required. What is required is mutual desire and political will to solve problems through dialogue,” he told reporters in a daily briefing.
Trump’s hopes for a swift end to the conflict have stoked concern in Kyiv that Ukraine could be forced to accept a peace deal on terms favorable to Moscow.
Washington has delivered tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale military offensive in February 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that without such support his country would have lost the conflict.
He is pushing Trump to back his “peace-through-strength” proposal, seeking NATO protections and concrete Western security guarantees as part of any settlement to end the fighting.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry dismissed Trump’s comments on any forthcoming meeting with Putin.
“Trump has talked about plans for such a meeting before, so we see nothing new in this,” said spokesman Georgiy Tykhy.
“Our position is very simple: we all in Ukraine want to end the war fairly for Ukraine, and we see that President Trump is also determined to end the war,” he said, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
Tykhy said Ukraine was preparing for high-level discussions between Kyiv and Washington “immediately” after the inauguration, including between Trump and Zelensky.
The Supreme Court is considering a possible TikTok ban. Here’s what to know about the case
- Three appeals court judges have sided with the government and upheld the law, which bans TikTok unless it’s sold
- The justices largely hold the app’s fate in their hands as they hear the case Friday
WASHINGTON: The law that could ban TikTok is coming before the Supreme Court on Friday, with the justices largely holding the app’s fate in their hands.
The popular social media platform says the law violates the First Amendment and should be struck down.
TikTok’s parent company is based in China, and the US government says that means it is a potential national security threat. Chinese authorities could force it to hand over sensitive data on the huge number of Americans who use it or could influence the spread of information on the platform, they say.
An appeals court has upheld the law, which bans TikTok unless it’s sold.
The law is set to take effect Jan. 19, the day before a new term begins for President-elect Donald Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on the platform. The Republican says he wants to “save TikTok.”
Here are some key things to know about the case:
Is TikTok banned?
Not now, but the short-form video-sharing app could be shut down in less than two weeks if the Supreme Court upholds the law.
Congress passed the measure with bipartisan support, and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed it into law in April.
TikTok’s lawyers challenged the law in court, joined by users and content creators who say a ban would upend their livelihoods. TikTok says the national security concerns are based on inaccurate and hypothetical information.
But a unanimous appeals court panel made up of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents has upheld the law.
When will the Supreme Court decide?
The justices will issue a decision after arguments Friday, a lightning-fast movement by court standards.
The conservative-majority court could drop clues about how it’s leaning during oral arguments.
TikTok lawyers have urged the justices to step in before the law takes effect, saying even a monthlong shutdown would cause the app to lose about one-third of its daily American users and significant advertising revenue.
The court could quickly block the law from going into effect before issuing a final ruling, if at least five of the nine justices think it is unconstitutional.
What has Trump said about it?
The law is to take effect Jan. 19, the day before Trump takes over as president.
He took the unusual step of filing court documents asking the Supreme Court to put the law on hold so that he could negotiate a deal for the sale of TikTok after he takes office. His position marked the latest example of him inserting himself into national issues before he takes office. It also was a change from his last presidential term, when he wanted to ban it.
Parent company ByteDance has previously said it has no plans to sell. Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, last month.
Who else is weighing in?
Free-speech advocacy groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have urged the court to block the law, saying the government hasn’t shown credible evidence of harm and a ban would cause “extraordinary disruption” in Americans’ lives.
On the other side, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican former Senate leader, and a group of 22 states have filed briefs in support, arguing that the law protects free speech by safeguarding Americans’ data and preventing the possible manipulation of information on the platform by Chinese authorities.
State-run Pakistan International Airlines resumes direct flights to Europe after EU lifts ban
- The curb was imposed in 2020 after 97 people died when a PIA plane crashed in Karachi
- The ban caused a loss of nearly $150 million a year in revenue for the flag carrier
ISLAMABAD: State-run Pakistan International Airlines resumed direct flights to Europe on Friday following a decision by the European Union’s aviation safety agency to lift a four-year ban over safety standards, officials said.
Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif inaugurated the twice-a-week flights to Paris and vowed that PIA will expand its operations to other European countries soon.
The flight from Islamabad was fully booked with more than 300 passengers, the airline said.
Asif said in a speech that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency had imposed the ban on PIA’s operations to Europe because of an “irresponsible statement” by a former aviation minister.
The curb on PIA was imposed in 2020 after 97 people died when a PIA plane crashed in Karachi in southern Pakistan. Then-Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said an investigation into the crash found that nearly a third of Pakistani pilots had cheated on their pilot’s exams. A government probe later concluded that the crash was caused by pilot error.
The ban caused a loss of nearly $150 million a year in revenue for PIA, officials say.
Meanwhile, the first international flight was scheduled to depart from Gwadar, a new airport in southwestern Pakistan, later Friday. The Chinese-funded airport was inaugurated by Chinese Premier Li Qiang in October.
The airport, Pakistan’s largest, is located in restive southwestern Balochistan province and is part of a massive investment by Beijing that links a deep seaport and airport on the Arabian Sea by road with China.
Tajikistan bets on giant dam to solve electricity crisis
- Tajikistan is reviving the colossal project, first planned by Soviet authorities in 1976, before being abandoned due to the end of communist rule
- The plant will not only generate enough power to use domestically, but could supply other Central Asian countries and even Afghanistan, Pakistan
ROGUN: In a remote village in Tajikistan’s soaring mountains, Muslikhiddin Makhmudzoda relies on a mobile phone to light his modest home as his family spends another winter without electricity.
Makhmudzoda’s three children and wife were sitting huddled together to share the phone’s flashlight in their modest brick home.
A shortage of water needed to fuel hydroelectric plants has led to serious power outages in Tajikistan, a poor former Soviet republic nestled in the Central Asian mountains and surrounded by Afghanistan, China, and fellow ex-Soviet states Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The power crisis is only set to worsen, as Central Asia is hard-hit by climate change.
Amid chronic shortages, Tajikistan has promised it will end the power outages and has revived a Soviet-era mega-project to build the world’s highest dam.
Makhmudzoda’s family spend much of their day without power.
“We have electricity from 5:00 am to 8:00 am and then from 5:00 p.m. until 11:00 pm,” the 28-year-old said.
To cope with intermittent power supplies, the family resorts to using a charcoal stove for heating — a risky choice, since many Tajiks die from carbon monoxide poisoning each year caused by such appliances.
Every year, the impoverished country’s state electricity company Barqi Tojik restricts power supplies starting in September to prevent the system’s collapse during the coldest months.
It says this is an “inevitable measure” as demand has skyrocketed.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the small country’s population has doubled to 10 million, with economic growth steady at around eight percent after decades of stagnation.
The rationing is also due to falling water levels in reservoirs used to drive turbines in hydroelectric power plants, which provide 95 percent of Tajikistan’s electricity.
Authorities say “feeble rainfall” means that water levels in the country’s biggest river — the Vakhsh — are low.
“Every centimeter of water counts,” Barqi Tojik has warned, urging Tajiks to pay their bills to renovate aging infrastructure.
The average salary in Tajikistan hovers around $190 (180 euros) a month.
But the government is now promising that all these inconveniences will soon be a thing of the past thanks to the construction of a massive dam and plant.
Tajikistan has placed its bets on Rogun, planned to become the most powerful hydropower plant in Central Asia. It is set to have the highest dam in the world at 335 meters (1,100 feet).
When completed, the plant is intended to produce some 3,600 megawatts — the equivalent of three nuclear power stations.
Tajikistan is reviving the colossal project, first planned by the Soviet authorities in 1976, before being abandoned due to the end of communist rule and then the Tajik civil war.
At the site, dozens of bulldozers go up and down the mountains and dozens of kilometers of underground tunnels are equipped with giant turbines.
Some 17,000 people are working on the site which lies west of the capital Dushanbe, in the foothills of the Pamir Mountains.
The site is already partially functioning but it is not known when construction will be finished.
Giant banners showing President Emomali Rahmon — in power for 32 years — hang over the construction site.
Rahmon has stressed the importance of the dam, calling it a “palace of light,” the “pride of the Tajik nation” and the “construction project of the century.”
Surrounded by giant machinery, engineer Zafar Buriyev said he was certain the dam would end power cuts.
“Once the construction at Rogun is finished, Tajikistan will completely come out of its electricity crisis,” he told AFP.
He stood in what he called “the heart of the dam” in between giant peaks.
“By next summer, this area will be submerged and the water will reach an altitude of 1,100 meters and then eventually 1,300.”
Authorities have said the plant will not only generate enough electricity to use domestically, but could supply other Central Asian countries — and even nearby Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Water resources have long been a source of tension between Central Asian countries as they suffer shortages.
The plant’s technical director Murod Sadulloyev told AFP it will help “reinforce the unified energy system” in Central Asia — a concept dating back to the USSR that enables the former Soviet republics to exchange water and electricity.
Tajikistan’s neighbors are also working to revive Soviet-era energy projects.
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have pledged to build the Kambar-Ata hydroelectric power plant jointly in a mountainous area of Kyrgyzstan.
Tajikistan’s Rogun project has been criticized for its constantly rising cost — currently more than $6 billion — and its environmental impact, while information on Kambar-Ata has been classified as secret.
The Central Asian power plants are being built in the context of dire climatic realities.
According to the UN, Central Asia is “warming more rapidly than the global average.”
