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from Asia Times
LEAST BIASED, HIGH; News & Media Website based in Hong Kong
China unveiled a development plan Monday for its new energy vehicle (NEV) industry from 2021-2035 that aims to accelerate the country into being an automotive powerhouse. The plan, released by the State Council, China’s cabinet, listed five strategic tasks – to improve technology innovation capacity, build new-type industry ecosystems, advance industrial integration and development, perfect the infrastructure system and deepen opening-up and cooperation. The specific targets include bringing the average power consumption of new, purely electric passenger cars down to 12 kWh/100 km and raising the proportion of new NEVs in the sales of new vehicles to 20% by 2025.
2020 has been a challenging year for economies across the world, with previously strong currencies enduring protracted declines and previously steady currencies succumbing to periods of volatility. Comparing various Asian currencies with the US dollar (USD) can provide an insight into how different parts of the continent have coped with the tough economic conditions throughout the year. By utilizing the USD as a fixed point of comparison, it becomes easier to see which Asian currencies boast upward mobility and which currencies are understandably stagnating.
Energy giant Saudi Aramco on Tuesday posted a 44.6% slump in third-quarter profit, as the coronavirus pandemic weighs heavily on the global demand for crude oil. The behemoth, the world’s most valuable listed company, posted a net profit of 44.21 billion Saudi riyals (US$11.79 billion), compared to $21.3 billion in the same period last year.
In a contested region of Afghanistan, the dividing line between the Taliban and government is a thin one. Despite peace talks in Doha, Qatar, now in a second month without any conclusive progress towards a settlement, armed clashes continue in Helmand in the nation’s still volatile and hotly contested south. While both sides talk of peace in Doha, on the ground in Helmand both sides are more apparently digging in for more fighting rather than forging reconciliation. Helmand is in many ways the heart of Afghanistan. American and British special forces left the battlefield here in 2014, making the province into a symbol of the US-led military coalition’s failure and retreat.
Respect for the feelings and sentiments of the religious other should be integral to one’s belief system, whether it is secular or not.
Austria and Greece on Tuesday became the latest European nations to impose spirit-crushing curbs to combat the coronavirus surge, with a deadly terrorist attack in Vienna ahead of a partial lockdown compounding the misery. The virus has infected over 46 million people worldwide, with more than 1.2 million deaths, and the acute outbreaks in Europe and America are sparking further alarm about the state of the already devastated global economy.
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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