East Godavari: At least 40 boats were gutted after a major fire broke out in a fibre boat manufacturing factory in the Kakinada district of Andhra Pradesh.
After receiving word of the blaze, several fire tenders were rushed to the spot, officials said.
A fire department official said, “After getting information, we rushed to the spot and launched an operation to douse the fire.
Around 40 boats were gutted in the fire,” he said.
According to officials, a short circuit may have led to the fire.
BRUSSELS — Just when you thought Europe’s China policy could not be more disunited, the two most powerful countries of the European Union are now also at odds over whether to revive a moribund investment agreement with the authoritarian superpower.
For France, resuscitating the so-called EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) is “less urgent” and “just not practicable,” according to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in favor of “reactivating” the agreement, which stalled soon after it was announced in late 2020 after Beijing imposed sanctions on several members of the European Parliament for criticizing human rights violations.
Speaking to POLITICO aboard his presidential plane during a visit to China earlier this month, Macron said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed the CAI, “but just a little bit.”
“I was very blunt with President Xi, I was very honest, as far as this is a European process — all the institutions need to be involved, and there is no chance to see any progress on this agreement as long as we have members of the European Parliament sanctioned by China,” Macron told POLITICO in English.
Beijing has proved skilled at preventing the EU from developing a unified China policy, using threats ranging from potential bans on French and Spanish wine to warnings that China will buy American Boeing instead of French Airbus planes.
Disagreement over the CAI is only one further example of divergence over China policy in Europe, where Beijing has expertly courted various countries and played them against each other in games of divide-and-rule over the past decade.
Scholz seeks CAI thaw
Following seven years of tortuous negotiations, the CAI was rushed through by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the end of Germany’s six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in late 2020.
Merkel sought to seal the deal and ingratiate herself with Beijing before Washington could apply pressure to block it, causing tension with the incoming administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
Germany has long been the most vocal cheerleader for the CAI due to its scale of manufacturing investments in China, particularly in the car-making and chemicals sectors.
The CAI would have made it marginally easier for European companies to invest in China and protect their intellectual property there. But critics decried weak worker protections and questioned to what degree it could be enforced.
Xi Jinping during Macron’s visit to Beijing | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Soon after the agreement was announced, Beijing imposed sanctions on several European parliamentarians in retaliation for their criticism of human rights abuses in the restive region of Xinjiang.
The deal, which requires ratification by the European parliament, went into political deep freeze.
Scholz, who at times seems to mimic the more popular Merkel, would like to take CAI “out of the freezer” — but has cautioned that “this must be done with care” to avoid political pitfalls, according to a person he briefed directly but who was not authorized to comment publicly.
“It is surprising Scholz still thinks this is a good idea, despite the vastly changed context from a couple of years ago,” said one senior EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss sensitive diplomatic issues.
EU branches split
Not only are EU countries divided on how to approach CAI — there’s also a rift among institutions in Brussels.
With its members sanctioned, the European Parliament is certain to reject any fresh attempt to ratify the CAI.
But like Scholz, European Council President Charles Michel also hopes to resuscitate the deal. He has discussed this with Chinese communist leaders, including during his solo visit to Beijing late last year, according to a senior EU official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, however, has stymied Michel’s attempts to place the agreement back on the agenda in Brussels. Von der Leyen is far more skeptical of engaging with China, citing increasing aggression abroad and repression at home.
Von der Leyen accompanied Macron on part of his China trip earlier this month, but said of her brief meeting with Xi Jinping and other Chinese officials that the topic of CAI “did not come up.” She has publicly argued that the deal needs to be “reassessed” in light of deteriorating relations between Beijing and the West.
Meanwhile, Chinese officials have made overtures to Michel and other sympathetic European leaders, suggesting China could unilaterally lift its sanctions on members of the European Parliament — but only with a “guarantee” the CAI would eventually be ratified.
A spokesperson for Michel said an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers will discuss EU-China relations on May 12. “Following that discussion we will then assess when the topic of China is again put on the table of the European Council,” he said.
During the same interview with POLITICO, Macron caused consternation in Western capitals when he said Europe should not follow America, but instead avoid confronting China over its stated goal of seizing the democratic island of Taiwan by force.
Manfred Weber, head of the center-right European People’s Party, the largest party in the European Parliament, described the French president’s comments as “a disaster.”
In an an interview with Italian media, he said that the remarks had “weakened the EU” and “made clear the great rift within the European Union in defining a common strategic plan against Beijing.”
[ad_2]
#Europes #disunity #China #deepens
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Chennai: Two persons were killed while two others were injured when a blast occurred on Saturday at a fireworks manufacturing unit in Tamil Nadu’s Sivakasi.
The deceased have been identified as V. Thangavelu (55) and P. Karuppuswamy (28), both residents of Idaiyankulam village in Virudhunagar district.
The injured individuals — Karuppammal (54) and R. Marithai (45) have been admitted to the Sivakasi government hospital.
The unit is owned by Praveenraj of Sivakasi and has a license from Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation.
Police said that the incident occurred when the workers were manufacturing crackers in sheds and Karuppuswamy and Thangavel were filling chemicals for making ground chakras.
Hyderabad: A fire broke out on Friday morning in a plastic bottle manufacturing unit in the Katedan of Mailardevpally on the city outskirts. According to police, no casualties were reported because the unit was closed at the time of the incident.
Officials said that the intensive fire must have been caused by a short circuit.
On Thursday night, employees had left after work and the unit was closed.
As per police, the plastic unit is located close to a residential area and when locals noticed a blaze and thick smoke coming out from the unit early morning, they informed the fire department ad police.
Firefighters reached the spot and doused the fire within an hour. However, the total value of the damage to property is yet to be determined. The Mailardevpally police are looking into the matter
BRUSSELS — The next big transatlantic trade fight is primed to explode.
Negotiators from Brussels and Washington are scrambling to solve a five-year dispute over steel and aluminum dating back to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on European imports. They have until October to get a deal but are still so far apart that European officials now fear the chances of an agreement are slim.
Without a deal, both sides could reimpose billions of dollars worth of trade tariffs on each other’s goods — potentially spreading well beyond steel to hit products including French wines, U.S. rum, vodka and denim jeans.
While U.S. negotiators are still hopeful that an agreement can be reached in time, the political fallout of failure for President Joe Biden would be serious, with U.S. exports facing a hit just ahead of his potential re-election battle in 2024. More broadly, another breakdown in trade relations between Europe and the United States would heap further pressure on a relationship that is already under strain from Biden’s green subsidies package for American industries.
With a more assertive China threatening to disrupt supply lines, and Russia’s war in Ukraine straining global commerce, the last thing world trade needs is a new crisis between major Western allies. Six EU officials briefed on the talks worry that’s exactly what will happen.
“The start positions are just too far away,” said one of the officials, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive matters. “The huge concessions that would have to be made are politically not realistic in that timeframe.”
The transatlantic disagreement is a hangover from the days of Trump, who imposed tariffs on €6.4 billion worth of European steel and exports in 2018. The tariffs were extra sensitive because Trump had imposed them on grounds of national security.
After he came to power, Biden agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities rather than a complete end to the dispute. His aim was for negotiators to work jointly on making steel production greener and fighting global overcapacity. The unofficial U.S. goal is also to squeeze Beijing’s dumping of Chinese steel, which is made with far more coal-fired power.
But unless a new deal is struck by October, the risk is that tariffs return. A summit between Biden and EU leaders has now been penciled in for October, potentially to coincide with the final leg of talks on the dispute.
China hawks
Officials in Brussels see the ongoing negotiations as just another push from the U.S. to force them into taking a harder line against China. “The language just seems written to tackle one country specifically,” said one of the European officials.
Discussions only recently picked up pace through the exchange of a U.S. concept paper and then an EU response. Those texts showed how far apart the two sides are on key issues, the officials said.
Washington wants to impose tariffs on imported steel or aluminum products, which would increase progressively based on how carbon-intensive the manufacturing process is, according to the proposal seen by POLITICO. Countries that join the agreement, which would be open to nations outside the EU, would face lower tariffs, or none at all, compared to those that do not.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally at Waco airport | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The EU’s response — also seen by POLITICO — does not include any form of tariffs, according to the officials. Brussels fears the American plan for tariffs goes against the rules of the World Trade Organization, which is a no-go for the EU.
But a senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, told POLITICO that tariffs should not be off the table.
“That’s a pretty powerful tool for driving the market both to reduce carbon intensity as well as to reset the playing field to counteract non-market practices and excess capacity,” the U.S. official said. “What we’ve been trying to understand and respond to, in part, is what are those reasons that the EU has to have concerns about a tariff-type structure.”
Karl Tachelet, deputy director general of European steel association Eurofer, said: “We haven’t seen any real ambition or vision to use this as an opportunity to tackle excess capacity or decarbonization. So it can only lead to a clash of views.”
Americans don’t see it that way.
“The U.S. and the EU share a commitment to tackling the dual threat of non-market excess capacity and the climate crisis, and the Biden administration is committed to developing a high-ambition framework that accomplishes those objectives for our workers and these critical industries,” said Adam Hodge, spokesperson for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
A student does steel work in Dayton, Ohio | Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images
But the senior Biden administration official argued that the EU proposal lacks ambition. It makes “tweaks around the margin” without actually attacking “the fundamental problem” that the two sides agreed to address when they called their truce.
“Our concern with the EU’s paper is that it doesn’t really change the dynamic of trade,” the U.S. official said.
“If we’re going to change the course of the impact of non-market excess capacity on market economies like the U.S. and EU, as well as really thinking about how can we use trade as a tool to drive decarbonization, we need to produce something that’s different and more ambitious,” the official added.
Several officials said Washington is also seeking an exemption from the EU’s carbon border tax, which imposes a tax on some imported goods to make sure European businesses are not undercut by cheaper products made in countries with weaker environmental rules.
Such an exemption for the U.S. is another no-go for Brussels. A European Commission spokesperson said giving the U.S. a pass on the carbon border tax would constitute a breach of WTO rules and “cannot be compared with” the U.S. steel and aluminum measures.
Workers at LB Steel LLC in Illinois manufacture wheel assemblies for high-speed trains | Scott Olson/Getty Images
Another European concern is that the U.S. wouldn’t scrap the possibility of re-imposing tariffs on the EU, even though the WTO branded them as illegal. Under Trump, Brussels argued only a complete withdrawal of the tariffs would satisfy the EU, contending the duties were an illegal slap in the face of an ally.
The senior U.S. official said that using national security to justify the tariffs — a rationale that would surely draw opposition in Brussels — “hasn’t been a part of our conversation with the EU to date.” But the Biden administration’s concept paper wasn’t written with WTO compliance top of mind, the official added.
Landing zone
Brussels and Washington are now negotiating to find a landing zone.
“Both sides are coming from two different positions on this,” said one of the European officials, while stressing that “there is a mutual interest to find a solution.”
Others were more pessimistic. Either way, a Plan B is taking shape in the background. Several of the European officials stressed the EU and the U.S. can also buy more time by prolonging the current ceasefire. “The deadline is always flexible,” said Uri Dadush, a Washington-based fellow at the Bruegel think tank. “Both sides can easily agree to extend.”
Steven Overly reported from Washington. Sarah Anne Aarup and Camille Gijs contributed reporting from Brussels.
[ad_2]
#Trumps #tariff #time #bomb #threatens #blow #transatlantic #trade
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
New Delhi: In a major crackdown against the manufacture of substandard drugs, central and state regulators conducted joint inspections at 76 pharma companies and cancelled the licences of 18 of them for producing spurious and adulterated drugs, official sources said on Tuesday.
The inspections were carried out across 20 states and Union territories in the past 15 days, they said. The names of the companies are not yet known.
An official source said that the action has been taken against 76 companies in the first phase of a special drive against the manufacture of spurious drugs.
“Licences of 18 pharma companies have been cancelled for manufacturing spurious and adulterated drugs and for violating GMP (good manufacturing practice)…. Besides, 26 firms have been given show-cause notices and the product permission of three firms have been also cancelled,” the source said.
As part of the special drive, the regulators have identified 203 firms. A majority of the companies are from Himachal Pradesh (70), followed by Uttarakhand (45) and Madhya Pradesh (23), sources said.
More such inspections will follow in the coming days, they said.
Recently, questions have been raised over the quality of drugs manufactured by India-based companies. In February, the Tamil Nadu-based Global Pharma Healthcare recalled its entire lot of eye drop allegedly linked to vision loss in the US.
Before that, India-made cough syrups were allegedly linked to children deaths in the Gambia and Uzbekistan last year.
Hyderabad: The Central Government sanctioned nine projects to Telangana under the Technological Development Fund plan for the manufacture of various defence equipment, the union minister of state for defence, Ajay Bhatt, Union Minister of State for Defence, stated in Lok Sabha that 68 projects had been sanctioned to 14 states throughout the nation.
While Karnataka and Maharashtra both received 14 projects, Tamil Nadu received nine and Uttar Pradesh received five.
To date, 68 projects totalling Rs. 287.40 crore have been sanctioned under the TDF Program. The DRDO’s share is Rs.250.12 crore, and Rs.58.87 crore of that has been released, he added.
In response to a question from Girish Bhalchandra Bapat, he stated that the government has taken several policy initiatives and reforms in recent years to encourage indigenous design, development, and manufacture of defence equipment, thereby promoting self-reliance in defence manufacturing in the country. These initiatives include prioritising the acquisition of capital items from domestic sources under the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP)-2020.
Among the several attempts are the simplification of the industrial licence procedure with a longer validity time; liberalisation of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy, which allows 74 percent FDI via the automatic route; and simplification of the ,ake Procedure.
Bengaluru: The Narendra Modi government’s target is to increase electronics manufacturing capability to Rs 24 lakh crore by 2025-26, which will also help create over 10 lakh jobs, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said on Friday.
Addressing a gathering of students here as part of the ‘New India for Young India Initiative’, the minister said that young Indians are driving the country’s progress in India’s ‘Techade’.
“There are more than 90,000 startups, including 110 unicorns, in which Young Indians are playing a big part. They have achieved their success due to their hard work and efforts and not because of any connections or famous last name, ” he told a packed audience.
Chandrasekhar had an interactive session with students in which, he answered their queries ranging from skilling, R&D and innovation ecosystem, entrepreneurship opportunities and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ recent meeting with him.
On a query about the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) crisis and Indian government’s role to mitigate the woes of the startups, the minister said, the country’s banking system is much more resilient and stronger in comparison to any other country’s banking system.
“The startups should, therefore, opt for Indian banks as their preferred banking partners,” he added.
The minister had earlier said that over a billion dollar worth of capital “attributable to Indian startups” was stuck in deposits at SVB when it collapsed.
Chandrasekhar also informed that over $250 million have been transferred from SVB to GIFT City banks in the last few days.
Matthew Karnitschnig is POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent.
BERLIN — Europe’s worst-kept secret is that the Germans ultimately decide everything.
“I’ll never forget how all the other member states held back in anticipation, waiting to see what the Germans would do,” a senior U.K. official, recalling his time in Brussels, recently told a private dinner of MPs and other German officials in Berlin.
The recollection was meant as a compliment, one the official hoped would ingratiate him with the Germans around the table.
Sad thing is it worked.
The second worst-kept secret in Brussels is that for all the “peace project” kumbaya, the Germans actually enjoy dominating the place. That said, even stalwart veterans of the EU bubble were hard-pressed in recent days to cite a more blatant example of toxic Germanity than Berlin’s last-minute intervention to save the internal combustion engine.
To recap: Last week, EU countries were expected to rubber-stamp a package of measures aimed at ridding Europe’s roads of fuel-burning autos. Under the plan, the EU would prohibit new registrations of cars powered by internal combustion engines beginning in 2035. The sweeping deal, the culmination of years of painstaking negotiations in Brussels and European capitals, is a pillar of the EU’s ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Berlin’s 11th-hour intervention on a deal everyone believed was done and dusted not only left the EU’s environmental policy in limbo, it also laid bare the bloc’s power vertical in all its dubious Teutonic glory. The message: Germany is no longer even trying to hide its power.
Enter France.
“For the French, the situation also represents an opportunity and they are never ones to waste a good crisis,” an EU diplomat said. “The more they can contribute to the idea that Germany goes it alone, the more it strengthens the view that the Germans are an unreliable partner in Europe.”
Germany’s unprecedented move has given rise to fears that other countries will try to follow its example and hold EU reforms hostage by threatening a last-minute veto to win concessions, in effect rewriting the rules of engagement.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them.
That’s why the real significance of the standoff has less to do with CO2 emissions than how Brussels works. One big concern among EU insiders is that the coalition Germany has assembled to save the car, which includes the likes of Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, will go rogue as a bloc on other fronts, with or without German support.
Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035 | Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
It’s easy to mock the circuitous nature of EU decision-making, the push and pull between the European Commission, Parliament and Council, communicated in the opaque dialect of Brussels’ earnest eurocrats.
Boring as it may be, the alchemy produces bona fide results that legitimize and sustain the EU.
That Germany is willing to tinker with this delicate balance betrays either ignorance in the current regime of how the EU works, ambivalence, or both.
One could argue with justification that Germany was never going to kill the golden goose. Invented and perfected in Germany over more than a century by the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Audi, the internal combustion engine has been the wellspring of German pride and prosperity for generations.
The image of a piston-fired Porsche 911 zooming down the autobahn is as core to German identity as sex is to the French.
Take that away, what’s left (aside from beer and bratwurst)?
Indeed, considering that the country’s automakers haven’t proved particularly adept at manufacturing electric cars (or more specifically the batteries at the heart of the vehicles), there was a strong case for Germany to develop low-emission synthetic fuels that would keep the internal combustion engine alive.
Berlin had at least a decade to do so.
Thing is, it didn’t, choosing instead to pour billions into subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles and the infrastructure to recharge them (full disclosure: the author is a beneficiary of such a subsidy).
What’s more, Germany also encouraged other European countries to follow suit. In fact, Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035. The cluster of countries that have served as the workbench for those companies, from Slovakia to Hungary and Austria, all agreed to go along.
That’s why the German insistence this month that the EU carve out an exception to the engine ban for cars powered by synthetic, so-called e-fuels has caught the rest of Europe flat-footed.
Why now? In a word, politics.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them | John Thys/AFP
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have dropped below 20 percent in a number of recent polls, putting them more than 10 percentage points behind the first-place Christian Democrats.
Scholz’s smallest coalition partner, the business-oriented Free Democrats (FDP), are in even worse shape. The party fared miserably in a string of recent regional elections and in national polls, it is teetering perilously close to the 5 percent threshold parties need to surpass for entry into parliament.
Party leader Christian Lindner, who used to drive souped-up Porsches around the storied Nürburgring race track, has vowed to save the engine from the clutches of the Green lobby.
Scholz, keenly aware that his party’s base also remains attached to “das Auto,” has been happy to let him try and has so far not stepped in to intervene.
About 1 million Germans work in the auto industry and many of those jobs — especially at suppliers — would be lost if the engine is killed for the simple reason that electric cars have far fewer (and different) parts than traditional automobiles.
The real mystery is why the Greens, the other party in Germany’s governing triumvirate, have not done more to resolve the crisis. Not only has the environmental party championed the engine ban for years, but it is also the most pro-European party in the government and would normally be at pains to keep Berlin from even appearing to undermine Brussels.
Yet Green Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has largely been silent on the issue. Far from the fray in Europe, he was last spotted in the Amazon having his face painted by an indigenous girl during a swing through the region.
In a bid to defuse the standoff ahead of next week’s EU leaders’ summit, the German government sent a letter to the Commission on Wednesday, spelling out what it wants in return for lifting its blockade. Its chief demand — a broad exception for e-fuels — was already rejected by the Parliament and other institutions during the original negotiations over the package.
Reversing that would require the deal to be reopened.
The French are sure to cry foul.
And then Germany will push ahead anyway.
Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.
[ad_2]
#Toxic #Germanity #battle #das #Auto
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Anantnag, Feb 24: For the very first time, a known cricket manufacturing company from South Kashmir’s Anantnag district has taken an initiative to provide a platform to talented cricketers of Kashmir to reach international level.
Gr8 Sports, a bat manufacturing company from Halmulla Anantnag, has signed MoU with various international cricket boards and leagues to vanguard the talent from Kashmir.
Owner of the company Fawzul Kabiir while talking to news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said that he has witnessed that cricket players in Kashmir are very much talented but they lack the platform to reach to the mega stages.
“We have taken up initiative to provide them a platform so that they get an opportunity to reach to international level and prove their mettle,” he said.
Any professional cricketer below 36 years of age can make videos of his signature shots and upload them while tagging Gr8 Sports on social media, he said, adding that every video of batting, bowling or wicket keeping will be analyzed by experts and management companies and shortlist players.
Kabiir said that every year shortlisted players will undergo trials before selection committee members of international cricket boards and International league franchisees, who will select them for different leagues.
“Every year around 100 batsmen, 100 bowlers and around 50 wicket keepers will be shortlisted who will have to undergo trials and can reach international level as selection will be done on spot in Kashmir,” he said.
“Our aim behind this initiative is just to promote local talent and we have signed MoU with at least 10 cricket playing nations and if our players will be able to showcase talent, they can reach international leagues like Carabian League, BPL,” he added.
Let players play their normal cricket and make videos and upload them while tagging us and Mobica-our talent management company will access and on that basis screening will be done and players will be shortlisted.
After shortlisting, international coaches of franchises and international boards will be brought here one by one and will select players from shortlists on the basis of data base uploaded and trials, he said.
He said that even children have exposure to leather ball cricket and he is hopeful that local cricket players will be able to showcase their talent anywhere in the world.
“It will be a big opportunity for talented youth to make their career besides that it will help in keeping youth away from social evils and generate income as well,” he said.
When asked why he is sponsoring players, he said that mostly sponsored players are being used as advertising agents only and they don’t get proper opportunity as we want to make stars not marketing agents.
“The Company has also decided to start a monthly show that will be live on social media platforms where queries of players will be answered besides that international players will guide talented players as well,” he said.
“We want to provide talented players every opportunity to groom them into stars and this program will be started from March 2023,” he said.
Interested players can tag us on Facebook @gr8sports.biz, Twitter @gr8sports_ltd, Website https://gr8sports.org—(KNO)
