HONG KONG: Hong Kong will gradually resume public services from Apr 1, the government said on Friday (Mar 25), with the global financial hub posting its lowest number of daily infections in about a month.
Government departments will return to normal service by Apr 21, it said in a statement, part of a broader easing of strict coronavirus measures which have created widespread frustration for residents and businesses.
Leader Carrie Lam this week announced the lifting of measures including a ban on dining in restaurants after 6pm, and the reopening of most public venues and sports facilities.
Schools are also due to resume face to face classes by Apr 19.
Many people in the Chinese ruled territory have been working from home since February when a wave of the highly transmissible Omicron variant swept through the city.
The government's announcement signals that many of Hong Kong's 7.4 million residents will return to offices in line with civil servants guidelines.
Health authorities reported 10,405 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, down from 13,074 the previous day. The city hit a record high of over 58,000 infections on Mar 9.
Hong Kong has officially stuck to a "dynamic zero" coronavirus strategy, which aims to curb outbreaks as they occur with contact tracing, testing and isolation. The policy largely protected it from the virus until the beginning of this year.
However the latest wave came as large numbers of elderly remained unvaccinated, causing a spike in infections with Hong Kong registering the most deaths per million people globally in recent weeks.
Since the pandemic began in 2020, Hong Kong has recorded more than 1.1 million infections and more than 6,700 deaths - most of them in the past month.
A photograph taken on March 9, 2022, shows a BP petrol station in the town of Chekhov outside Moscow, Russia. (Photo: AFP)
China’s oil refiners are discreetly purchasing cheap Russian crude as the nation’s supply continues to seep into the market.
Unlike India’s state-run oil refiners, which have issued a number of tenders seeking to buy Russia’s flagship Urals crude among other grades, traders say China’s state processors are negotiating privately under the radar with sellers. The nation’s independent refiners are also quietly buying, according to traders who asked not to be identified as the information is confidential.
Most buyers are shunning Russian crude after its invasion of Ukraine, fearing damage to their reputation or falling foul of sanctions. China’s independent refiners, which account for a quarter of the nation’s processing capacity and are mainly based in Shandong province, bought some ESPO oil that’s loaded at Russia’s eastern port of Kozmino, according to traders.
The recent ESPO purchases by independent refiners, known as teapots, are for May-loading cargoes, and the Chinese processors are continuously making inquiries about Russian oil, traders said. ESPO is a favored grade because it can be shipped to their smaller ports -- that are unable to unload larger vessels -- from a shorter distance, cutting down costs.
Some teapots are working with traders on financing options and checking on the availability of vessels to ship the crude at a reasonable price, and are also considering buying Urals, said traders. The cargoes of Urals purchased by state-run processors are for June delivery, they added.
Trading of Russian oil has mostly shifted away from the public eye after its invasion of Ukraine. Willing buyers and sellers are being forced to engage in private negotiations after some tenders attracted zero bids. Shell Plc got heavy criticism after its purchase of Urals not long after the war started.
Another of Russia’s Far East crude grades -- Sokol -- is also flowing to India. State-run Indian Oil Corp. and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. bought some Sokol loading in May from ONGC Videsh Ltd, an equity partner in the Sakhalin-I project, according to traders. Cargoes are loaded from the De-Kastri terminal.
Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and ONGC declined to comment.
Japan’s Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co known as SODECO, which also has an equity interest in Sakhalin-I, declined to comment on its future exports of Sokol crude. Traders said some buyers in North Asia are likely to take their already-committed cargoes of the grade in May.
India has so far bought at least 13 million barrels of Urals since late February, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, with Indian Oil purchasing a further 3 million barrels in its latest tender. Volumes to the nation averaged about 128,000 tonnes a month in 2021, Bloomberg calculations based on ship-tracking data show. Urals is shipped from ports in the Baltic and Black Seas.
WASHINGTON: About one-in-three COVID-19 cases in the United States are now caused by the BA.2 Omicron sub-variant of the coronavirus, according to government data on Tuesday (Mar 22) that also showed overall infections still declining from January's record highs.
Despite the rise of the extremely contagious sub-variant also seen in other countries, US health experts say a major wave of new infections here appears unlikely.
US COVID-19 infections have receded sharply since January, although a resurgence in parts of Asia and Europe have raised concerns that one will follow in the United States given previous patterns during the two years of the pandemic.
In the Northeast, including New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, Omicron BA.2 now makes up more than half the cases, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
It accounted for 35 per cent of US infections for the week ending Mar 19, CDC said. That compares with 22.3 per cent for the week ending Mar 12, which was revised down from 23.1 per cent, according to a CDC model that estimates proportions of circulating variants.
Top US infectious disease official Dr Anthony Fauci said at a Washington Post event on Tuesday that he does not believe there will be a major surge soon, "unless something changes dramatically".
Still, Fauci noted that cases in the United States generally lag around three weeks behind the United Kingdom, "so if we are going to see an uptick, we should start seeing it within the next week or so".
Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of division of infectious diseases at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, said there was no evidence yet that the rise of BA.2 is pointing to an increase in cases.
"I think the one concern and where people need to remain vigilant is that as we have relaxed many restrictions around masking and gathering, there is a potential opportunity for BA.2 or any variant to gain a foothold," Kuritzkes said.
The sub-variant is more transmissible than the Omicron BA.1 variant that caused the massive winter surge, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. It does not appear to cause more severe disease, however, and early data showed that infection with BA.1 offers strong protection against reinfection with BA.2, the WHO said.
Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has put Chinese companies in an increasingly precarious position as they attempt to preserve and expand their business with Russia while navigating what they hope will prove to be short-term disruptions.
DJI, the Chinese drone maker whose equipment is used by both sides in the Ukraine war, typifies those challenges after finding itself in the spotlight last week when a senior Ukrainian official urged the company to stop doing business with Russia.
Russian troops “are using DJI products in Ukraine in order to navigate their missile[s] to kill civilians”, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice prime minister, wrote in an open letter posted on Twitter. He demanded that DJI take a series of measures, including sharing more product information and blocking the potential use of its drones by Russian forces. “We call on your company to stop doing business in the Russian Federation until the Russian aggression in Ukraine is fully stopped,” Fedorov added.
While many western technology companies have responded positively to such pleas DJI, the industry leader, rebuffed them as firmly as Chinese diplomats have rebuffed criticism that President Xi Jinping has effectively sided with Russia.
The company tweeted in response to Fedorov that its products did not meet “military specifications” and his other requests were either impractical or required a formal order from the Ukrainian government. “We remain available to discuss these issues at your convenience,” DJI said.
“DJI can’t block products that are purchased and activated in Russia as doing so may violate data compliance rules,” said a person close to the business. “The company doesn’t want to be involved in politics.”
But the person added that if US sanctions threaten DJI’s access to American-made components, it will have no choice but to “exit the Russian market”.
“DJI complies with the laws and regulations of the markets in which we operate,” the company said.
A Beijing-based lawyer who advises Chinese companies on their Russian operations said many were struggling to balance commerce and allegations that they were keeping Russia’s economy afloat after western governments imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Moscow.
“Chinese companies are finding it increasingly difficult to walk a fine line between conducting normal business activities in Russia and bankrolling its war against Ukraine,” the person said.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, China’s economic links with its northern neighbour have also come under strain. According to a recent survey of 322 Chinese exporters by FOB Shanghai, an industry forum, 39 per cent of respondents said the war had “severely” undermined their Russian business.
Importers are not faring much better. Russia’s coal exports to Asia, where China is the biggest buyer, fell to 1.8mn tonnes in the first two weeks of March compared to 62mn tonnes in February, according to Refinitiv, a data provider.
“There is too much risk trading with Russia,” said Frank Yao, owner of a coal trader based in the northeastern city of Dalian. His company cancelled an order from Russia this month because the seller had trouble processing payments after western governments banned some of the country’s banks from Swift, the global financial messaging system.
But many Chinese companies still want to expand their trade with Russian counterparts.
Xibao Metallurgy Materials Group, a manufacturer and distributor of advanced materials based in the central Chinese district of Xixia, recently signed a Rmb300mn ($47mn) deal to build a refractory material plant in Lipetsk, a city in western Russia. Refractory materials are used in heat-intensive industries such as steel making.
Li Shucheng, Xibao’s president, said in an online ceremony on March 10 that he was determined to embark on the project despite “lots of challenges arising from continuous regional conflicts”.
“We have assessed all kinds of potential risks and opportunities and have drawn up a well-founded contingency plan for our investment,” Li added.
In the northeastern city of Changchun, the state-owned commodity trader Jidian International Trade Co has purchased at least 50,000 tonnes of coal from Russia since the war broke out, according to an executive who asked not to be named. “We are still in the business when many of our peers are out,” the person added, noting that the company had signed long-term contracts with Russian coal groups such as SUEK and Elga.
Many of Jidian International’s peers are following suit. The China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association, an industry body, hosted a video conference on March 11 at which a dozen of the country’s big power plants and about 20 Russian coal companies discussed plans to increase bilateral trade just as the US and UK banned Russian oil imports.
“We are actively exploring opportunities to work with our Russian partners,” said an official at Oasis Logistics Corp, a commodity trader in eastern Jiangsu province that was represented at the conference.
Despite a plunge in shipments over recent weeks, many analysts expect coal exports to rebound strongly in coming months. “Russia’s coal shipments to China may increase even further if other Asian countries reduce purchases,” brokerage Yongan Futures said in a report last week, adding that Chinese imports could offset reduced buying from South Korea after Seoul imposed sanctions on Moscow.
Shortly before the war began, Sergey Mochalnikov, a senior official at Russia’s energy ministry, said the country planned to almost double annual coal exports to China to 100mn tonnes.
Chinese demand for Russian coal has been stoked by shortages at home, which contributed to a series of severe power outages last year in many manufacturing areas.
Local mines have been forced to cut back on production in order to meet strict emissions target. The problem has been exacerbated by the suspension of Australian coal imports amid long-running political tensions between Beijing and Canberra.
“China needs Russian coal not because we want to provide support for Putin,” said the official at Jidian International. “We do so because it helps solve our economic problems.”
The logo of China Eastern Airlines at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China March 21, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wangvv
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BEIJING, March 21 (Reuters) - A China Eastern Airlines (600115.SS) Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in mountains in southern China on a domestic flight on Monday after a sudden descent from cruising altitude. Media said there were no signs of survivors.
The airline said it deeply mourned the loss of passengers and crew, without specifying how many people had been killed.
Chinese media showed brief highway video footage from a vehicle's dashcam apparently showing a jet diving to the ground behind trees at an angle of about 35 degrees off vertical. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
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The plane was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong, when it crashed.
Reuters Graphics
China Eastern said the cause of the crash, in which the plane descended at 31,000 feet a minute according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, was under investigation.
The airline said it had provided a hotline for relatives of those on board and sent a working group to the site. There were no foreigners on the flight, Chinese state television reported, citing China Eastern.
Media cited a rescue official as saying the plane had disintegrated and caused a fire destroying bamboo trees. The People's Daily quoted a provincial firefighting department official as saying there was no sign of life among the debris.
State media showed a piece of the plane on a scarred, earthen hillside. There was no sign of a fire or personal belongings.
The aircraft, with 123 passengers and nine crew on board, lost contact over the city of Wuzhou, China's Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the airline said.
The flight left Kunming at 1:11 p.m. (0511 GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed, and had been due to land in Guangzhou at 3:05 p.m. (0705 GMT).
The plane, which Flightradar24 said was six years old, had been cruising at 29,100 feet at 0620 GMT. Just over two minutes and 15 seconds later, data showed it had descended to 9,075 feet.
Twenty seconds later, its last tracked altitude was 3,225 feet.
Crashes during the cruise phase of flights are relatively rare even though this phase accounts for the majority of flight time. Boeing said last year only 13% of fatal commercial accidents globally between 2011 and 2020 occurred during the cruise phase, whereas 28% occurred on final approach and 26% on landing.
"Usually the plane is on auto-pilot during cruise stage. So it is very hard to fathom what happened," said Li Xiaojin, a Chinese aviation expert.
Online weather data showed partly cloudy conditions with good visibility in Wuzhou at the time of the crash.
President Xi Jinping called for investigators to determine the cause of the crash as soon as possible, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
A Boeing spokesperson said: "We are aware of the initial media reports and are working to gather more information."
Shares of Boeing Co (BA.N) were down 6.4% at $180.44 in premarket trade.
Shares in China Eastern Airlines in Hong Kong closed down 6.5% after news of the crash emerged, while its U.S.-listed shares slumped 17% in premarket trading.
China Eastern grounded its fleet of 737-800 planes after the crash, state media reported. China Eastern has 109 of the aircraft in its fleet, according to FlightRadar24.
The plane crashed during its cruise phase. Five fatal incidents have occurred during the cruise phase in the 10 years from 2010 through 2020, according to data examining global commercial jet airplane accidents compiled by Boeing.
'GOOD RECORD'
Aviation data provider OAG said this month that state-owned China Eastern Airlines was the world's sixth-largest carrier by scheduled weekly seat capacity.
The 737-800 has a good safety record and is the predecessor to the 737 MAX model that has been grounded in China for more than three years after fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
China's airline safety record has been among the best in the world for a decade.
"The CAAC has very rigid safety regulations and we will just need to wait for more details," said Shukor Yusof, head of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.
Investigators will search for the plane's black boxes - the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - to shed light on the crash.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said it was ready to assist with China's investigation if asked.
China's aviation safety record, while good, is less transparent than in countries like the United States and Australia where regulators release detailed reports on non-fatal incidents, said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal.
"There have been concerns that there is some underreporting of safety lapses on the mainland," he said.
According to Aviation Safety Network, China's last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport.
In 1994 a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 flying from Xian to Guangzhou crashed, killing all 160 on board in China's worst-ever air disaster, according to Aviation Safety Network.
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Reporting by Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms and Jamie Freed in Sydney; additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Nick Macfie and Hugh Lawson
BEIJING, March 21 (Reuters) - A China Eastern Airlines (600115.SS) passenger jet with 132 people on board crashed in the mountains of southern China on Monday while on a flight from the city of Kunming to Guangzhou, China's Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said.
The jet involved in the accident was a Boeing 737 aircraft and the number of casualties was not immediately known, state broadcaster CCTV said. Rescue services were on their way to the scene, it said. There was no word on the cause of the crash.
The plane was a 6-year-old 737-800 aircraft, according to Flightradar24.
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The CAAC said the aircraft lost contact over the city of Wuzhou. It had 123 passengers and nine crew on board. State media said earlier there were 133 people on board.
"The CAAC has activated the emergency mechanism and sent a working group to the scene," it said in a statement.
Media cited a rescue official as saying the plane had completely disintegrated. A fire sparked by the crash burned down bamboo and trees before being put out.
The flight departed the southwestern city of Kunming at 1:11 p.m. (0511 GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed. The flight tracking ended at 2:22 p.m. (0622 GMT) an altitude of 3225 feet (983 metres) with a speed of 376 knots.
It had been due to land in Guangzhou, on the south coast, at 3:05 p.m. (0705 GMT).
The web site of China Eastern Airlines was later presented in black and white, which airlines do in response to a crash as a sign of respect for the assumed victims.
The safety record of China's airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade.
According to Aviation Safety Network, China's last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport in low visibility.
The 737-800 model that crashed on Monday has a good safety record and is the predecessor to the 737 MAX model that has been grounded in China for more than three years following fatal crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.
1994, a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 flying from Xian to Guangzhou was destroyed in an accident after takeoff, killing all 160 people on board and ranking as China's worst-ever air disaster, according to Aviation Safety Network.
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Reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Jamie Freed in Sydney; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
Leader Carrie Lam said there was a “need” for people to get their hair cut, and then defended beach closures as necessary to prevent gatherings. Many residents had flocked to beaches and coastal parks for leisure activities with playgrounds, schools and most public venues shut.
Hong Kong has officially stuck to a “dynamic zero” coronavirus policy, similar to mainland China, which seeks to curb all outbreaks as soon as they occur.
Authorities this year have implemented the city’s most draconian measures since the pandemic started in 2020. Still infections and deaths have skyrocketed, and Lam has given no clear roadmap how Hong Kong can resume normality.
Tens of thousands have been affected financially by the broad closures, with coaches and clubs losing millions of dollars in revenue, sports associations said.
Around 10 per cent of Hong Kong’s 1,800 fitness centres won’t be able to continue operating, said Sam Wong, executive director of the city’s Physical Fitness Association.
Gym operator Fitness First said this week it was closing its Hong Kong gyms due to the lengthy coronavirus shutdowns.
The city’s Tennis Association said stakeholders from umpires and linesmen to equipment makers were losing significant revenue from the closures. It has urged the government to reopen courts as tennis can “naturally” implement social distancing measures.
At Repulse Bay beach, on Hong Kong’s southern tip, residents looked in frustration at makeshift blockades preventing them from accessing the shore.
“Unscientific and reactive again,” said a resident called Michael who did not want to give his last name.
Many of the city's young athletes were enthused after Hong Kong's strongest-ever Olympics performance in Tokyo last year. Lam said after the Games she would deploy large resources to support the sports industry, but the reality has been much different, residents said.
“While Hong Kong’s politicians are quick to take photos with the swim school’s famous and successful Olympians, they don’t seem to care at all about the financial hardship we have to endure due to poorly-thought-through facility closures,” said Michael Fasching, head coach at swim club Harry Wright International, which trained Olympian Siobhan Haughey.
