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China says it ‘reserves the right’ to deal with ‘similar situations’ after US jets shoot down suspected spy balloon | CNN

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China says it ‘reserves the right’ to deal with ‘similar situations’ after US jets shoot down suspected spy balloon | CNN


Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

China says it “reserves the proper” to cope with “related conditions” following america’ resolution to shoot down its high-altitude balloon.

“The US used pressure to assault our civilian unmanned airship, which is an apparent overreaction. We specific solemn protest in opposition to this transfer by the US aspect,” China’s Protection Ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei mentioned in a press release on Sunday afternoon native time.

China “reserves the proper to make use of vital means to cope with related conditions,” he added.

China’s International Ministry had earlier on Sunday accused the US of “overreacting” and “severely violating worldwide apply,” after US army fighter jets on Saturday shot down the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean in a mission President Joe Biden hailed as successful.

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The US believes the balloon was concerned in espionage, however China has refuted this, insisting it was a civilian analysis vessel blown astray.

“The Chinese language aspect has repeatedly knowledgeable the US aspect after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US resulting from pressure majeure – it was utterly an accident,” the Chinese language International Ministry’s assertion mentioned.

“Power Majeure” is a authorized time period which implies “better pressure”. It excuses a celebration from legal responsibility if an unexpected occasion, corresponding to a pure disaster, prevents it from performing its obligations underneath the contract.

“China clearly requested the US to deal with it correctly in a peaceful, skilled and restrained method. A spokesman for the US Division of Protection additionally acknowledged that the balloon is not going to pose a army or private risk to floor personnel,” the ministry’s assertion continued.

“China will resolutely safeguard the reliable rights and pursuits of related corporations, whereas reserving the proper to make additional vital response,” the overseas ministry added.

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Chinese language state media on Saturday introduced that the pinnacle of the nation’s climate service was relieved of his obligation, in a transfer seen by some analysts as an try to shore up Beijing’s place that the high-altitude balloon was of civilian nature primarily for meteorological functions.

Zhuang Guotai was the pinnacle of China Meteorological Administration till Friday, however his departure from that publish was not surprising. In late January, Zhuang was elected the pinnacle of the western Gansu province’s Individuals’s Political Consultative Committee, the provincial political advisory physique.

US officers have pushed again on China’s repeated claims the downed balloon was merely for civilian use and had made its method into American airspace by “accident.”

“This was a PRC (Individuals’s Republic of China) surveillance balloon. This surveillance balloon purposely traversed america and Canada and we’re assured it was searching for to observe delicate army websites,” a senior US administration official mentioned.

The official mentioned a second balloon, noticed over Central and South America, was “one other PRC surveillance balloon” and bore related technical traits to the one which flew over the US.

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“Each balloons additionally carry surveillance gear not normally related to normal meteorological actions or civilian analysis,” the official mentioned. “Assortment pod gear and photo voltaic panels positioned on the steel truss suspended under the balloon are a distinguished characteristic of each balloons.”

Pentagon officers earlier this week mentioned the balloon posed no “army or bodily” risk. The US determined in opposition to taking pictures down the balloon whereas it remained over land as a result of danger of falling particles hurting a civilian and as an alternative waited till it was over the ocean.

The US army will now give attention to particles restoration efforts.

The incident is the most recent in a collection of spying circumstances and has fueled a diplomatic disaster between Beijing and Washington.

In the meantime Taiwan authorities on Sunday mentioned that the Chinese language balloon incident “shouldn’t be tolerated by the civilized worldwide group.”

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The self-governed island, which China claims as a part of its territory regardless of by no means having managed it, has expertise of comparable balloons overflying its territory.

“Such actions by the Chinese language Communist Get together authorities contravene worldwide legislation, breach the airspace of different nations, and violate their sovereignty,” Taiwan’s International Ministry mentioned in a press release, calling on China’s authorities to “instantly stop conduct of this type that encroaches on different nations and causes regional instability.”

Balloons believed for use for “meteorological observations” flew over the island In September 2021 and in February 2022, in keeping with Taiwan’s Ministry of Nationwide Protection.

Nevertheless it stays unclear if these balloons have been the identical kind because the one downed by US fighter jets on Saturday.

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Joe Biden to raise solar import tariffs in bid to protect US industry

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Joe Biden to raise solar import tariffs in bid to protect US industry

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Joe Biden is set to impose tariffs on double-sided solar panel imports, as the president moves to protect US clean energy manufacturers and boost jobs ahead of November’s election.

US officials said the move would immediately end an exemption from Trump-era tariffs on imports of a type of panel unit often used in large solar projects, one of the fastest-growing forms of clean energy in the country. They will now attract a tariff rate of 14.25 per cent.

The steeper levy marks the latest protectionist move by the president, who is competing with Republican rival Donald Trump to court blue-collar voters in US manufacturing heartlands, with less than six months to go until the election.

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On Tuesday, Biden sharply increased tariffs on Chinese imports including electric vehicles and solar cells, deepening trade tensions with Beijing and thrusting trade policy to the centre of the election battle.

US officials have warned that China is producing more goods than its own market can absorb, triggering fears that Beijing could use cheap exports to undercut producers in other countries.

Ali Zaidi, Biden’s climate adviser, said the US solar “investment boom” was threatened by “unfair and non-market practices taking place overseas”. 

“The Chinese solar panel overcapacity, now projected to be double world demand, threatens to undercut panel manufacturing and solar supply chains around the world,” Zaidi said.

The announcement from the Biden administration comes as US imports of cheap solar panels and cells, largely from south-east Asia, have soared to record highs. An overproduction of solar panels from China has led to a collapse in global panel prices, threatening US manufacturing plans.

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The US imported 55 gigawatts of panels and 3.8GW of solar cells in 2023, with more than three-quarters of cell imports coming from Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam, according to BloombergNEF.

Alongside the new tariff on double-sided panels, the US is also offering some relief to domestic developers still reliant on imported cells — the units that make up panels — by increasing the amount that can be imported without levies from 5GW to 12.GW.

While some companies have announced their intent to open solar cell factories since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — aimed at boosting the domestic clean energy industry, among other goals — the US does not have any manufacturing capacity in operation.

The relief applies to cells imported from Asian countries except China, whose cell exports to the US face a 50 per cent tariff under the new regime announced on Tuesday.

“We know that the process of onshoring, friendshoring and frankly just diversifying the supply chains is not one that can be executed overnight,” said Zaidi.

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Raising the quota would ensure manufacturers in the US would have solar cells available to them and would support expanded US solar manufacturing, he added. 

US manufacturers including First Solar and Heliene had called for the US International Trade Commission to remove the tariff exemption for double-sided panels.

But the increase in the cell quota could anger large US manufacturers that make their own cells, including First Solar and Qcells, which have petitioned for antidumping duties on south-east Asian solar cells.

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Authorities seek public's help identifying baby abandoned in shopping cart at Lomita business

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Authorities seek public's help identifying baby abandoned in shopping cart at Lomita business

LOMITA, Calif. (KABC) — Authorities are asking for the public’s help in identifying a baby who was left at a business in Lomita.

A photo of the child was released, along with a surveillance image of an unidentified pregnant woman who authorities say abandoned the infant inside the store.

The child is believed to be seven to nine months old.

Deputies responded around 5 p.m. Tuesday to a business in the 2000 block of Pacific Coast Highway. When they arrived, a store employee told them a pregnant woman with a baby had entered the store and asked for a taxi.

The woman went to the bathroom as the employee arranged for a taxi. When the taxi arrived, authorities say the woman got in the car and left the child behind in a shopping cart.

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The woman’s whereabouts are unknown, and the child is in the care of the Department of Children and Family Services, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lomita Sheriff’s Station at 310-539-1661. Anonymous tips can be made by calling Crime Stoppers at 800 222-8477.

Copyright © 2024 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.

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When the customer is not always right

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When the customer is not always right

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One of the world’s best known luxury brands recently conducted a survey of its global store network, sending local platoons of secret shoppers to assess the level of customer service. Despite their stellar reputation, the outlets in Japan fared dismally.

“The problem was not the service. It was the shoppers,” relates the senior director in charge. “In reality, we knew the service in our Japan stores was by far the best anywhere in the world, but the Japanese customers that we sent found faults that nobody else on earth would see.”

Many will see an enviable virtuous circle in this tale — a parable of what happens when a service culture seems genuinely enthusiastic about and responsive to the idea that the customer is always right. High service standards have begotten high expectations, and who would see downside in this?

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The trouble is that, in Japan as elsewhere in the world, the “customer is always right” mantra is having a bit of a wobble. Perhaps existentially so.  

The concept has always come with pretty serious caveats; fuller versions of the (variously attributed) original quote qualify it with clauses like “in matters of taste” that shift the meaning. But in a tetchier, shorter-fused world the caveats are multiplying.

Japan’s current experience deserves attention. After many decades at the extreme end of deifying the customer (Japanese companies across all industries routinely refer to clients as kamisama, or “god”), there is now an emerging vocabulary for expressing a healthy measure of atheism. 

The term “customer harassment” has, over the past few years, entered the Japanese public sphere to describe the sort of entitled verbal abuse, threats, tantrums, aggression and physical violence inflicted by customers on workers in retail, restaurants, transport, hotels and other parts of the customer-facing service economy. One recurrent complaint has been customers demanding that staff kneel on the floor to atone for a given infraction.

However tame these incidents may appear in relative terms — comparing them with often violent equivalents in other countries — the perception of a sharp increase in frequency means the phenomenon is being treated as a scourge. The Japanese government is now planning a landmark revision of labour law to require companies to protect their staff from customer rage.

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The real breakthrough, though, lies in legislating the idea that customers can be wrong — a concept that could prove more broadly liberating.

Luxury goods and virtuous circles aside, customer infallibility has not necessarily been the optimal guiding principle for Japan, and is arguably even less so now that demographics are squeezing the ability to deliver the same levels of service as before. Excessive deference to customers came, during the country’s long battle with deflation, to border on outright fear that the slightest mis-step risked losing them forever.

So much deference was paid to the customer that companies were reluctant to raise prices even as they themselves bore the cost of maintaining high standards of service. Japan, during its deflationary phase, became one of the great pioneers of product shrinkflation: a phenomenon that, from some angles, made deference to customers look a lot like contempt for their powers of observation.

Perhaps the biggest dent left by Japan’s superior standards of service, though, has been the chronic misallocation of resources. The fabulous but labour-intensive service that nobody here wants to see evaporating has come at a steadily rising cost to other industries in terms of hogging precious workers. That has become more evident as the working-age population begins to shrink and other parts of the economy make more urgent or attractive demands. As with any large-scale reordering, the process will be painful.

Worldwide, though, the sternest challenge to the customer is always right mantra arises from its implication of imbalance. Even if the phrase is not used literally, it creates a subservience that seems ever more anachronistic. In a research paper published last month, Melissa Baker and Kawon Kim linked a general rise in customer incivility and workplace mental health issues to the customer is right mindset. “This phrase leads to inequity between employees and customers as employees must simply deal with misbehaving customers who feel they can do anything, even if it is rude, uncivil and causes increased vulnerability,” they wrote.

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Japan may yet be some way from letting service standards slip very far. It may be very close, though, to deciding that customers can have rights, without being right.

leo.lewis@ft.com

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