Washington DC , December 1,2020: The United States and Europe must decide how they will ensure the international system will adhere to its values in the face of China’s unfair trading practices, murky investment, and political interference, according to a report by the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The United States and Europe on the one hand, and China on the other, have very different visions of what the world should look like. This competition of ideas and of systems touches on our political and cultural values, our economic prosperity, and our security,” said the US Senate report titled ” A Concrete Agenda for Transatlantic Cooperation on China.”
“The United States and Europe must decide how we will ensure the international system maintains its commitment to its values, even in the face of China’s unfair trading practices, murky and corrupt investment, and political interference to advance its authoritarian ends,” the report added.
This report comes as experts have suggested that the incoming Joe Biden administration might impose sanctions thus affecting the Chinese economy next year.
David Li Daokui, a professor at Tsinghua University and a former adviser to China’s central bank, according to South China Morning Post warned that economic planners should not rule out the possibility of a Trump comeback in 2024 and added that President-elect Biden might “continue Trump’s hard-line approach to China.”
Further talking about the growing Chinese threat, the US Committee report said that “Neither side of the Atlantic can respond to the challenges China poses alone. The only way forward is to work together. Transatlantic security and prosperity require that we renew our commitment to each other and pledge to use all of our combined tools to succeed.”
It also states that the degree to which China can dominate the Indo-Pacific will have a direct impact on its ability to project power globally.
“As a result of the region’s growing economic and political weight, the opportunities presented by robust alliances and partnerships, and China’s more assertive and coercive regional posture, the United States has determined that the Indo-Pacific is a top foreign policy priority,” the report said.
This report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee comes amid China’s growing belligerence in its neighborhood and beyond. Tension has been rising over the issue of Hong Kong security legislation, trade, Beijing’s military aggression, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tehran [Iran], December 1 ,2020: Days after Iran’s nuclear arms program scientist was assassinated, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has been killed in a drone strike near the Syria-Iraq border.
According to media reports cited by Haaretz, three more were killed along with the commander, who has been identified as Muslim Shahdan.
The Iraqi intelligence sources have been quoted as saying that Shahdan’s car was targeted while he was crossing into Syria. Despite reports confirming Shahdan’s death, Hezbollah-affiliated organization has denied the report.
Last week, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist was killed in an apparent assassination that the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif linked to Israel.
However, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has not commented on the incident. Fakhrizadeh was head of the research center of new technology in the elite Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday accused Israel of being behind the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The President said that the incident will not disrupt the “scientific growth” of the country and will only make young scientists more determined “to continue the path of this precious martyr”, Sputnik reported.
In January this year, the United States assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force responsible for military activity outside Iran, Haaretz reported
Tension started to re-build in the Middle East region after the US unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal agreement and unleashed sanctions on Iran. Thereafter, Tehran started to withdraw from its nuclear commitments in 2019.
Tehran, Dec 1,2020: Iranian authorities said on Monday that they firmly believe that Israel and an exiled opposition group were behind the assassination of their top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, but that they used a remote-control weapon to kill him on Friday.
Security chief Ali Shamkhani, while speaking at the funeral of Fakhrizadeh said the attackers had “used electronic equipment” when Fakhrizadeh’s car was fired upon east of the capital Tehran, BBC reported.
Iranian versions of what happened have changed significantly but it appears that Fakhrizadeh was mortally wounded when his car was sprayed with bullets in the town of Absard, to the east of Tehran.
During the attack a bomb in a Nissan pickup truck is also reported to have exploded.
Pictures on social media show a road strewn with wreckage and blood, and a bullet-riddled vehicle.
First the defence ministry had reported a gunfight between Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards and several gunmen.
Then Iranian media said the scientist had in fact been killed by a “remote-controlled machine gun” or weapons “controlled by satellite”.
And on Monday, Rear Admiral Shamkhani, who heads the Supreme National Security Council, confirmed it had been a remote attack, using “special methods” which he did not specify.
Israel has so far not made any kind of comment on the Iranian allegations that they were responsible for Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.
Fakhrizadeh had played a crucial role developing in Iran’s nuclear programme and was accused by Israel of being responsible for developing Iran’s nuclear weapon’s programme. The Iranian government has always insisted that its nuclear activities are entirely for peaceful purposes.
Nov 30,2020:The European Union wants to forge a new alliance with the United States to bury the tensions of the Trump era and meet the challenges posed by China, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper reported, citing a draft plan.
The plan proposes rebuilding ties, with common fronts on issues ranging from digital regulation to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, the FT said.
Relations between the US and Europe have been strained under President Donald Trump. The EU and most of the bloc’s states have congratulated President-elect Joe Biden following the November 3 election.
“As open democratic societies and market economies, the EU and the US agree on the strategic challenge presented by China’s growing international assertiveness, even if we do not always agree on the best way to address this,” the FT cited the draft plan as saying.
The plan, which will be submitted for endorsement by national leaders at a meeting on December 10-11, proposed the launch of a new transatlantic agenda in an EU-US summit in the first half of 2021, the newspaper added.
Earlier in November, the EU imposed tariffs on up to $4bn of US imports in retaliation for US subsidies for Boeing but said it was hopeful of an improvement in trade ties under Biden.
EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis earlier said the European Commission, which coordinates trade policy for the 27 EU member states, had made some informal contacts with the Biden team.
The draft paper, prepared by the Commission, says the EU-US partnership needs “maintenance and renewal” if the democratic world is to assert its interests against “authoritarian powers” and “closed economies [that] exploit the openness our own societies depend on”, according to the FT.
Under Trump, the US has been reluctant to coordinate its response to China with the EU, frustrating many in Brussels, and has even imposed its own trade measures against the EU.
MUMBAI,nov 30,2020: India’s novel corona virus cases rose by 38,772, the health ministry said on Monday, making it the 23rd straight day that daily cases have stayed below the 50,000 mark.
The country now has 9.43 million cases, the second-highest in the world after the United States, but daily cases have been dipping since hitting a peak in September.
Deaths rose by 443 in the last 24 hours, and now total 137,139.
New Delhi, Nov 30,2020: Categorically rejecting the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) resolution adopted against it, India on Sunday asked them to refrain from making such references in future.
In a statement, the ministry of external affairs said, “We strongly and categorically reject the factually incorrect, gratuitous and unwarranted references to India in resolutions adopted by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) at the 47th CFM Session in Niamey, Republic of Niger, held on 27-28 November 2020.”
“We have always maintained that OIC has no locus standi in matters strictly internal to India, including that of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral and inalienable part of India,” it said.
It is regrettable that OIC continues to allow itself to be used by a certain country, which has an abominable record on religious tolerance, radicalism and persecution of minorities, to indulge in anti-India propaganda, it added.
“We strongly advise the OIC to refrain from making such references in future,” the ministry added.
Nov 28 (PTI) A low pressure area over south Andaman Sea and adjoining Bay of Bengal was “very likely” to concentrate into a depression in the next 48 hours and intensify further before moving towards the Tamil Nadu coast, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Saturday. Under its influence, various parts in southern states were likely to receive rainfall starting December 1, the IMD said in a series of tweets. “A Low Pressure Area lies over South Andaman Sea adj SE (south east) Bay of Bengal and Equatorial Indian Ocean. It is very likely to concentrate into a depression during next 48 hours and likely to intensify further thereafter,” it said. It is likely to move nearly westwards and reach south Tamil Nadu coast around December 2, it said. Under its influence, scattered to widespread rainfall activity was “very likely” over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal, Kerala, Mahe, Lakshadweep, south coastal Andhra Pradesh and south Rayalaseema on Tuesday and Wednesday, the weather office said. IMD also forecast isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall with moderate thunderstorm and lightning over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal during this period. Isolated heavy falls with moderate thunderstorm and lightning was also very likely over south coastal Andhra Pradesh during December 1 and 2 and over Rayalseema and Lakshadweep area on Wednesday, it added.
Nov 27,2020:Tamil Nadu-based The Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd. with pre-independence lineage on Friday lost its identity after its merger with the Indian subsidiary of Singapore’s DBS Bank. The debt-ridden 94-year old old bank’s fate was sealed with Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approving Scheme of Amalagamation on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of India had announced Nov. 27 as the effective date of merger for LVB with DBS Bank India Ltd.
All the branches of LVB will function as branches of DBIL with effect from Nov. 27, the RBI had said in a statement.
Although depositers of the bank now have clarity, promoters and investors of the bank have been left high and dry. LVB was asked to write off Rs 318-crore Tier-II Basel III bonds by ahead of its merger with DBS Bank by RBI on Thursday citing Section 45 of the Banking Regulation Act, resulting in losses to the investors of these bonds.
Besides, the shares of the bank are going to be delisted as per the Scheme of Amalgamation — Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd. (Amalgamation with DBS Bank India Ltd.) Scheme, 2020.
Many stakeholders including bank unions have raised questions on the manner in which the LVB was merged with subsidiary of a foreign bank, saying that RBI has gifted LVB for free.
Bank employees’ union AIBEA has said that the Reserve Bank’s culpability in the failure of the 94-year-old bank needs to be looked into and that the proposed merger of the lender with DBIL will provide a back-door entry for a foreign banking entity into the Indian market.
In a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday, the All India Bank Employees Association said the approach of merger of the Tamil Nadu-based lender with Indian subsidiary of a Singapore-based bank is opposite to the policy of Aatmanirbhar Bharat professed by the government.
DBIL became lucky in the second attempt. In 2018, DBS had approached LVB to acquire about 50% of the stake in karur-based lender for a much higher valuation, Rs 100-Rs 150 per share.
LVB then had appointed JPMorgan to scout for investors for the bank. But, when the DBS approached the RBI with the proposal, it sought an exemption from the stake dilution norms The RBI didn’t agree with the proposal and hence rejected it.
The RBI had superseded LVB’s board on Nov. 17 after the private sector lender was placed under a 30-day moratorium restricting cash withdrawals at Rs 25,000 per depositor.
The RBI simultaneously placed in public domain a draft scheme of amalgamation of LVB with DBIL.
Started by a group of seven businessmen of Karur in Tamil Nadu under the leadership of VSN Ramalinga Chettiar in 1926, LVB has 566 branches and 973 ATMs spread across 19 states and Union Territories.
With non-performing assets soaring, the bank was put under the prompt corrective action framework of the RBI in September 2019.
LVB is the second private sector bank after Yes Bank that has run into rough weather this year.