SHANGHAI (AFP) – The chairman of China’s biggest insurer is under investigation by the Communist Party’s anti-corruption commission, the agency said yesterday, as the government pushes a campaign against graft and a clean-up of the country’s chaotic
financial industry.
Wang Bin is being investigated for suspected “serious violations of discipline and law”, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a brief statement, wording that typically indicates impending graft charges.
Wang chairs China Life Insurance, which is listed in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York. The announcement gave no further details.
Bloomberg financial news agency reported recently that China Life and other major insurers were struggling with a decelerating Chinese economy and shrinking levels of new business, among other woes.
Their shares have also been hit by fears of their exposure to China’s crisis-hit property sector.
In October, China Life posted a 54-per-cent drop in third-quarter profit.
Chinese regulators have struggled for years to clean up massive debt and mismanagement in its corporate sector, a battle that has focussed lately on property giant Evergrande Group.
People on a street seen against the skyline of the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai. PHOTO: AFP
BEIJING (AP) – A strong overnight earthquake shook a sparsely populated area in western China early yesterday and forced the suspension of high-speed rail service because of tunnel damage, authorities said.
Four people with minor injuries in Menyuan Hui Autonomous County had been treated and released, officials told a news conference.
The magnitude 6.9 quake struck at 1.45am in a mountainous part of Qinghai province that is 3,659 metres above sea level. It was felt 140 kilometres southeast in Xining, the provincial capital, where some people rushed outside of homes and buildings.
Nighttime video posted online by CGTN, the overseas arm of state broadcaster CCTV, showed furniture and ceiling lamps swaying and livestock suddenly standing up and moving in its pen.
Photos from the state-owned China News Service showed scattered damage to homes including a broken window and wall tiles and a large ceiling section that had fallen.
There are five villages within five kilometres of the epicentre, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Service on some sections of a high-speed rail line from Lanzhou in Gansu province to the Xinjiang region was halted because of damage to several tunnels, Xinhua said. Some lines between Qinghai and Tibet were closed and inspectors were sent to check the tracks.
Rescue and firefighting teams in Qinghai and neighbouring Gansu province have sent about 500 rescuers to the epicentre, the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management said in an online statement. Another 2,260 rescuers from neighbouring provinces were on standby.
The ministry and the China Earthquake Administration dispatched a team to Qinghai to help investigate the situation and resettle any affected residents.
Firefighters check a building in Xitan village in Menyuan Hui Autonomous County in northwestern China’s Qinghai Province. PHOTO: AP
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Three white men convicted of murdering African American jogger Ahmaud Arbery after chasing him in their pickup trucks were sentenced to life in prison on Friday in a case that highlighted United States (US) tensions over racial justice.
Travis McMichael, 35, and his father Gregory McMichael, 66, were sentenced to life without parole, while their neighbour, William ‘Roddie’ Bryan, 52, who had a less-direct role in the murder and cooperated with investigators, was given life with the possibility of parole.
The three were convicted in November of multiple counts of murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment for chasing down 25-year-old Arbery on February 23, 2020 as he ran through their Satilla Shores neighbourhood near Brunswick, in the southern US state of Georgia.
Pronouncing the sentence, Georgia Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley called the murder “a tragedy on many, many levels”.
Weighing the verdict, Walmsley said he kept thinking of “the terror of the young man running through Satilla Shores”.
A demonstrator holds a sign at the Glynn County Courthouse in the US. PHOTO: AFP
“He left his home apparently to go for a run and he ended up running for his life,” Walmsley said.
“He was killed because individuals here in this courtroom took the law into their own hands.”
The Arbery case had added to a burst of nationwide anger and protests in 2020 over police killings and mistreatment of African Americans, sparked initially by the death in May that year of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Before the sentencing, members of Arbery’s family asked the court to give the three the harshest possible penalty.
“They each have no remorse and do not deserve any leniency,” said Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones. “This wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. They chose to target my son because they didn’t want him in their community.”
His father, Marcus Arbery said, “The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I’ll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again, not at a dinner table, not at a holiday and not at a wedding.”
NEW DELHI (CNA) – India’s competition watchdog on Friday ordered an investigation into Alphabet Inc’s Google following allegations from news publishers, saying its initial view was that the tech giant had broken some anti-trust laws.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said Google dominates certain online search services in the country and may have imposed unfair conditions on news publishers.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The complainant, Digital News Publishers Association, which comprises the digital arms of some of India’s biggest media companies, said Google denied fair advertising revenue to its members. “In a well-functioning democracy, the critical role played by news media cannot be undermined,” the CCI order said.
“It appears that Google is using its dominant position in the relevant markets to enter/protect its position in the market for news aggregation service.”
Employees riding bicycles outside Google headquarters in Mountain View. PHOTO: AP
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (AP) – Two Haitian journalists were killed by gang members while reporting in a conflictive area south of Port-au-Prince, police said on Friday, as a surge in violence continues to shake the Caribbean nation.
One of the journalist’s employers and some media reports said the men had been shot then burned alive, but police did not confirm this. A police statement said only that the bodies had “large-caliber bullet wounds”.
Radio Ecoute FM said journalist John Wesley Amady was killed by “armed bandits” on Thursday in Laboule while he was reporting on security issues in the gang-plagued area.
“We condemn with the utmost rigor this criminal and barbaric act, which constitutes a serious attack on the rights to life in general, and those of journalists in particular to exercise their profession freely in the country,” said the station’s general manager, Francky Attis.
Police released a statement confirming the deaths of Amady, 30, and Wilguens Louissaint, 22.
Police patrol after recovering the bodies of slain journalists in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. PHOTO: AP
Initial reports were that three journalists went to the scene and two were killed, while the third escaped.
“The Almighty Gangs struck again in Haiti at the start of 2022,” said Godson Lebrun, President of the Haitian Online Media Association. “I bow to the remains of these fellow journalists who were killed just because they wanted to inform! I demand an investigation and may justice be granted!”
In New York, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, “This is just one more example of what journalists the world over face and sadly, we may expect the impunity with which they are murdered for just trying to tell the truth.”
Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry condemned the killings.
“On behalf of the government, I offer my condolences to the family and friends of the victims, as well as to the press in general,” he said.
Henry has vowed to crack down on gangs that authorities blame for a spike in kidnappings and for blockages at gas distribution terminals that caused a severe fuel shortage in recent months.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – With United States (US) inflation high and the Federal Reserve expected to hike interest rates within months, US President Joe Biden said on Friday he had faith in the central bank’s ability to manage price increases while ensuring that businesses keep hiring.
“I want to be clear: I’m confident the Federal Reserve will act to achieve their dual goals of full employment and stable prices and make sure the price increases do not become entrenched over a long term, with the independence that they need,” the president said at the White House.
He spoke following the release of the Labor Department’s December employment report, which showed a disappointing 199,000 jobs added in the final month of the year, but the unemployment rate dipping to 3.9 per cent, not far from where it was before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Fed is undoubtedly paying close attention to the report, as policymakers led by Chair Jerome Powell juggle how to fight the inflation surge that’s pushed consumer prices to multi-decade highs without stifling the labour market’s recovery from its collapse in 2020.
At its policy meeting last month, Fed officials signalled as many as three rate hikes in 2022, and minutes from the conference released this week showed them ready to move even more aggressively against inflation, if necessary.
Officials also believed the economy was nearing full employment, if it was not there already, although they also were wary of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which has caused new cases to soar in recent weeks, the minutes said.
While overall hiring was under analysts’ forecast last month, the Labor Department data showed the economy added 6.4 million jobs in 2021, with the unemployment rate ending the year near its 3.5 per cent level of before the pandemic.
In November, Biden, a Democrat, nominated Powell for a second term in office, despite wishes from some of the president’s allies to pass the Republican chair over for a more progressive candidate.
BERLIN (AP) – Germany’s leaders agreed on Friday to toughen requirements for entry to restaurants and bars, and decided to shorten quarantine and self-isolation periods as the Omicron variant spreads fast through the country.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the 16 state governors built on restrictions introduced just after Christmas that limited private gatherings to 10 people and effectively shut nightclubs.
People have already been required for some time to show proof of full vaccination or recovery to enter establishments — as well as many non-essential shops, theatres and cinemas.
Friday’s decision calls for the requirements to be ratcheted up for restaurants.
Customers will have to show either that they have received a booster shot or provide a negative test result on top of proof that they have been vaccinated or recovered.
People with mandatory face masks line up in Cologne, Germany. PHOTO: AP
“Half the population will be boosted… in a few days” and will be able to go to restaurants without a test, Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey told reporters. “This is an extra incentive to get boosters.”
Still, the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said it wouldn’t introduce the new rule for now because its cases mostly still involve the Delta variant, and Bavaria said it was sceptical.
Scholz and the governors also agreed to shorten quarantine or self-isolation periods that are currently as long as 14 days, something that many other countries already have done.
People who have received boosters will no longer have to go into quarantine after having contact with coronavirus cases, and neither will people who have been fully vaccinated or recovered in the past three months.
All others can end their quarantine or self-isolation period after 10 days if they don’t have – or no longer have – symptoms; that can be cut to seven days with a negative test.
“These are strict rules, but they are pragmatic and mean an easing of the current rules,” Scholz said.
Friday’s decision by federal and state governments stated that the use of protective FFP2 masks in shops and on public transport is “urgently recommended”.
The COVID-19 situation in Germany has been foggy for the past two weeks because of very patchy testing and slow reporting over the holiday period.
Official figures, which authorities have acknowledged don’t yet show the full picture, have shown a steady increase in the infection rate over the past week.
JAKARTA (BERNAMA) – Indonesia’s international reserves amounted to USD144.9 billion as of December 31, down slightly from USD145.9 billion at the end of November.
The decline was due to, among others, the need to pay the government’s foreign debt, according to Bank Indonesia (BI).
In a statement on Friday, the central bank said reserves position suffices to finance eight months of imports and servicing the government’s external debt.
“The official reserve assets remain adequate, supported by the stability and solid domestic economic outlook, in line with the policy responses to stimulate economic recovery,” BI said.
The decline was due to, among others, the need to pay the government’s foreign debt, according to Bank Indonesia. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
SYDNEY (AFP) – Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov stunned defending champions Russia yesterday in a decisive doubles rubber to send Canada storming into an ATP Cup final against Spain.
Their Sydney showdown went to the wire after Shapovalov neutralised Roman Safiullin 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 in the opening singles match.
But world number two Daniil Medvedev then thrashed 11th-ranked Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 6-0 to level it up with a flawless performance in an ominous warning ahead of the Australian Open later this month.
It forced the match into a doubles shoot-out which looked to be going Russia’s way only for Canada to find an extra gear and grind out a 4-6, 7-5, 10-7 win to make their first-ever final in the team event.
“Felix did an amazing job. I had a little bit of a slow start, had trouble returning, but we did a good job to fight,” said Shapovalov, who missed Canada’s first singles match at the tournament while he recovered from COVID-19.
Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada in action against Russia’s Daniil Medvedev and Roman Safiullin during their semi-final match at the ATP Cup tennis tournament in Sydney. PHOTO: AP
“We have great team chemistry, team spirit, so it helped us a lot.”
Auger-Aliassime admitted he was down on confidence after crashing so heavily in the singles against Medvedev, but said his long-time friend Shapovalov helped him re-focus.
“I had to try and stay positive. Of course, it was tough, especially (because) that second set went the way it went in singles,” he said.
“Denis helped me and the team to push myself. We had a tough start in the doubles, so to be able to come back in this way, it’s really a team effort.
“That’s what the ATP Cup is about. You can still win after being 1-all and losing a tough singles.”
Their reward is a clash with 2020 runners-up face Spain today and they have a big task ahead against the unflappable Roberto Bautista Agut and his solid teammate Pablo Carreno Busta.
Both players are both in red-hot form, each winning all four of their singles encounters so far.
Medvedev led Auger-Aliassime 2-0 in their singles head-to-heads going into yesterday’s match, with his most recent triumph coming in a massive clash in last year’s US Open semi-finals, a tournament he went on to win.
But Auger-Aliassime nevertheless had confidence heading into the match after defeating world number three Alexander Zverev on Thursday.
The Russian master, however, never let him settle and cruised to victory in 69 minutes.
The Canadian started well and used his serve to control points, but when he was broken at 4-4 in the first set his game unravelled.
“He was serving just aces, playing good, so I knew I just had to stay in the match, try to do what I can, what’s possible against his big game,” said Medvedev, who will be the top seed at the Australian Open should Novak Djokovic not play.
“He definitely started to play a little bit worse and I managed to use it, and that was the key today.”
Shapovalov earlier had to work hard to put away the gritty Safiullin, with his serve and baseline game ultimately proving too much in the crucial moments.
“Definitely super tough. Obviously Roman is playing with a lot of confidence,” said Shapovalov.
“He’s a great player and surely he’s going to have an amazing season, so I’m very happy to get the win. It was definitely very tough.”
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) – Iran displayed three ballistic missiles at an outdoor prayer esplanade in central Tehran on Friday as talks in Vienna aimed at reviving Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers flounder.
The missiles – known as Dezful, Qiam and Zolfaghar – have official ranges of up to 1,000 kilometres and are already-known models, the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said.
Diplomats from countries that remain in the 2015 nuclear deal – Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China – are working with Tehran to revive the accord, which had sought to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for lifting of economic sanctions.
American diplomats are present at the nuclear talks in Vienna but they are not in direct talks with Iranians. The accord collapsed in 2018 when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States (US) from the deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran.
A report by Iranian state television said the missiles on display were the same types as those used to strike US bases in Iraq.
The display came on the second anniversary of a ballistic missile attack on bases housing American troops in Iraq in retaliation for the US drone strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.
The Iranian military mistakenly shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 with two surface-to-air missiles after the attacks, killing all 176 people on board. After days of denial, the Guard publicly apologised, blaming an air defence operator who authorities said mistook the Boeing 737-800 for an American cruise missile.
An Iranian military court in November held a hearing for 10 people suspected of having role in downing the Ukrainian airliner.
State TV said a commemoration ceremony for the victims was held in Tehran’s main cemetery with the presence of their families as well as officials.
A cleric walks past Zolfaghar and Dezful missiles displayed in a missile capabilities exhibition by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Tehran. PHOTO: AP
