WASHINGTON: The United States said Friday that it is barring imports from dozens more China-based companies — ranging from businesses in the metals to food industries — citing worries over forced labor.
Officials are adding around 30 entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list, meaning that goods wholly or partially made by these firms will be restricted from entering the United States.
The new additions bring the total number on the list to 107, said the Department of Homeland Security.
The reason is that the companies were found to either source materials from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region or work with its local government “to recruit, transfer, and receive workers, including Uyghurs, out of Xinjiang,” said the US Trade Representative’s office.
Beijing has been accused of incarcerating over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention facilities in Xinjiang, although officials strongly deny this.

The newly-targeted companies make goods ranging from agricultural to aluminum products, along with polysilicon materials.
They also mine and process metals like copper, gold and nickel, the USTR statement added.
Among them are companies tied to Chinese electric vehicle battery manufacturer CATL and China-linked Gotion too, a bipartisan US congressional committee noted on Friday.
Earlier this year, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and others flagged CATL and Gotion’s ties to two businesses, Xinjiang Nonferrous and Xinjiang Joinworld.
Both were included in the latest update.
The committee’s chairman John Moolenaar and other lawmakers released a statement saying: “While we are pleased with this initial step, we remain concerned that CATL and Gotion’s supply chains are deeply tied to the Xinjiang region.”
The rule comes into effect on November 25.
“Companies should not secure unfair advantages by exploiting workers,” said US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
“We will enforce our laws to address forced labor and prevent companies that violate workers’ rights from benefiting from the US market,” she added in a statement.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed into law in 2021.
 

LONDON: Experts in the fields of healthcare and technology gathered for the ATOM Conference at London’s National Science Museum to explore the ways in which advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and biomedical sciences might revolutionize healthcare and extend human life.

They focused in particular on how best to leverage cutting-edge technologies to aid understanding of the “living universe” with the aim of improving health so that 100-year lifespans become the norm.

“Life matters. At the end of the day, whatever is happening on our planet, for us it’s about life,” Armen Sarkissian, the former president of Armenia, said during his opening remarks to delegates.

“We have spent a lot of money on our accelerators, our space stations, observation telescopes and many other things to understand the non-living universe but I realized that I don’t understand my body; we don’t understand our bodies.”

Sarkissian, who trained as a physicist and computer scientist before becoming a politician, was joined at the conference by an array of prominent expert speakers, including: Irene Tracey, the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford; physicist Konstantin Novoselov, a Nobel prize-winner for his work on graphene; and Eric Xing, the president of Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi.

King Charles, a friend of Sarkissian, was scheduled to attend the conference but his speech was instead delivered by a spokesperson. In it, the monarch emphasized the royal family’s commitment to medical innovation, noting in particular his own interest in cancer research and treatment.

“Many of you will know that earlier this year (the king) was diagnosed with cancer, and (he is) very keen that other people should gain some benefit from his diagnosis,” said Dr. Michael Dixon, head of the Royal Medical Household.

“Perhaps he is more aware than any of us of the extraordinary potential to unleash a healthier future for us all.”

The conference was organized by the ATOM Institute, which was founded by Sarkissian and his son Vardan, the Science Museum and Singapore University.

Speakers highlighted the fact that our limited understanding of the living universe contrasts sharply with our advanced knowledge of many aspects of the non-living one. The discussions also considered the effects of conflicts and climate change on global health.

“We are living a time where there are devastating wars worldwide; in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Armenia and elsewhere in the world, hundreds of thousands of lives are being lost,” Sarkissian said.

“You can restore a bridge, you can restore a house, you can restore many things (but) how on earth do you restore lives that are destroyed? How on earth do you (restore) the millions of people who are wounded? How do you restore the mental problems and depression of tens of millions of people (resulting from) our activity?”

Other panel discussions considered pressing health-related challenges such antimicrobial resistance, which was recently highlighted at the UN General Assembly, and the resilience of healthcare systems during pandemics and natural disasters.

Specialist sessions focused on the growing global crisis in mental health; the transformative potential of AI in the health sector, including its implications for patient care, diagnostics and longevity; and ethical challenges relating to data security and privacy.

The ATOM Institute, the name of which stands for “Advanced Tomorrow,” seeks to foster collaborations on issues spanning geopolitics, medical innovation and technological breakthroughs with the aim of revolutionizing healthcare and extending the human lifespan.