January 2022

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A medical worker in protective suit collects a swab sample from a man for nucleic acid testing at a residential compound, during another round of mass testing following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Xian, Shaanxi province, Chi

BEIJING (Reuters) – China ended its final week of 2021 with its biggest tally of local coronavirus cases for any seven-day period since subduing the country’s first epidemic nearly two years ago, despite an arsenal of some of the world’s toughest COVID-19 measures.

The National Health Commission reported on Saturday 175 new community infections with confirmed clinical symptoms for Dec. 31, bringing the total number of local symptomatic cases in mainland China in the past week to 1,151.

The surge has been driven mostly by an outbreak in the northwestern industrial and tech hub of Xian, a city of 13 million.

The deepening outbreak in Xian will likely firm authorities’ resolve to curb transmissions quickly as and when cases emerge. The city, under lockdown for 10 days as of Saturday, has reported 1,451 local symptomatic cases since Dec. 9, the highest tally for any Chinese city in 2021.

While China’s case count is tiny compared to many outbreaks elsewhere in the world, forestalling major flare-ups in 2022 will be important. Beijing will be hosting the Winter Olympic Games in February, and the ruling Communist Party will hold a once-every-five-years congress, expected in the fall, where President Xi Jinping will likely secure a third term as party secretary.

The emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant will also drive Beijing to stick to its high vigilance against the virus. China has reported a handful of imported Omicron cases and at least one locally transmitted case.

Since August, China has tried to get any outbreak under control within about two weeks, much shorter than the four to six weeks in earlier battles against sporadic flare-ups following the initial nationwide epidemic, according to the National Health Commission.

Cities along China’s borders are at higher virus risk, either due to the presence of overland transport links or entry of infected travellers from other countries. Some were hit by Delta outbreaks that resulted in harsh travel curbs last year.

Yunnan, which shares a border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, reported new local symptomatic cases on 92 out of 365 days last year, or 25% of the time, more often than any other province, autonomous region or municipality.

(Graphic: Number of days in 2021 mainland China reported new local COVID cases with symptoms, https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/CHINA/lgvdwjwblpo/chart.png)

XIAN LOCKDOWN

The Xian outbreak, which led to cases in other cities including Beijing, could be traced back to a flight arriving from Pakistan, but it was unclear how it spread to local communities.

Many people have been forbidden from leaving their residential compounds, but a city government official said on Friday curbs would be loosened in less risky compounds when the time was right.

Postgraduate student Li Jiaxin, 23, said nobody can leave the campus of her university. She spent New Year’s Eve with her three room mates and was unable to meet with her boyfriend and family.

“I may be what you would consider a person with a strong sense of ritual, so I still feel a little sad that we are not together at this time,” she said.

(Graphic: Major China COVID-19 outbreaks in 2021, https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/CHINA/zdvxoqowepx/chart.png)

ECONOMIC WOES

China’s tough epidemic policies have helped stop its sprawling industrial sector from sliding into prolonged shutdowns, reaping important export gains as other pillars of growth weakened.

But unpredictable disruptions have shaken consumer sentiment and hammered the catering, hospitality and tourism sectors.

An employee surnamed Wang at a traditional teahouse in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, said her company’s revenues had been halved compared with pre-pandemic levels.

“Many guests from other provinces had came to our teahouse specially for a taste of Yunnan’s pu’er tea, but now there are fewer of them,” Wang said.

“My salary hasn’t been cut, but I feel I may lose my job at any time.”

(Graphic: Local COVID-19 cases in mainland China in 2021, https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/CHINA/dwvkrkrmkpm/chart.png)

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© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a rank conferral ceremony for military officials from the Army, Navy and Air Force, at the defence ministry in Taipei, Taiwan December 28, 2021. REUTERS/Annabelle Chih

By Sarah Wu

TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen had a New Year message for China on Saturday: military conflict is not the answer, but Beijing responded with a stern warning that if Taiwan crossed any red line it would lead to “profound catastrophe”.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has increased military and diplomatic pressure in the past two years to assert its sovereignty claims.

“We must remind the Beijing authorities to not misjudge the situation and to prevent the internal expansion of ‘military adventurism’,” Tsai said on Saturday in her New Year’s speech, broadcast live on Facebook (NASDAQ:).

Taiwan says it is an independent country and has repeatedly vowed to defend its freedom and democracy.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said https://www.reuters.com/world/china/look-future-stay-focused-xi-tells-china-new-years-address-2021-12-31 in his New Year address on Friday that the complete unification of “the motherland” was an aspiration shared by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

On Saturday, after Tsai’s speech, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, said: “We are willing to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification.”

“But if ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces continue to provoke and coerce, or even cross any red line, we will have to take decisive measures.”

The pursuit of independence will only throw Taiwan into a “deep chasm” and bring about “profound catastrophe”, Zhu added.

In recent months, Beijing has sent repeated air missions over the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan has said it will not give in to threats.

“The military is definitely not an option for solving cross-strait disagreements. Military conflicts would impact economic stability,” Tsai said.

To ease tension in the region, both Taipei and Beijing must “work hard to take care of people’s livelihoods and calm the hearts of the people” in order to find peaceful solutions to problems together, she said.

Tsai also said Taiwan would continue to monitor the situation in Hong Kong, adding that interference in the recent legislative election https://www.reuters.com/world/china/hong-kong-patriots-only-election-draws-record-low-turnout-2021-12-19 and the arrests https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/hong-kong-police-arrest-6-current-or-former-staff-online-media-outlet-2021-12-28 this week of senior staff at the pro-democracy media outlet Stand News “made people worry even more about human rights and freedom of speech in Hong Kong”.

“We will hold fast to our sovereignty, uphold the values ​​of freedom and democracy, defend territorial sovereignty and national security, and maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” Tsai said.

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Stock Markets21 hours ago (Jan 01, 2022 07:05AM ET)

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has pulled the plug on three of its last six nuclear power stations as it moves towards completing its withdrawal from nuclear power as it turns its focus to renewables.

The government decided to speed up the phasing out of nuclear power following Japan’s Fukushima reactor meltdown in 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the coastal plant in the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

The reactors of Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C, run by utilities E.ON and RWE, shut down late on Friday after three and half decades in operation.

The last three nuclear power plants – Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim II – will be turned off by the end of 2022.

Preussen Elektra, which runs the Brokdorf and Grohnde plants, said in a statement on Saturday the two had been shut down shortly before midnight on Friday. RWE said the Gundremmingen C plant also stopped generation on Friday evening.

PreussenElektra CEO Guido Knott thanked staff for their commitment to safety: “We have made a decisive contribution to the secure, climate-friendly and reliable supply of electricity in Germany for decades.”

The phase-out of an energy deemed clean and cheap by some is an irreversible step for Europe’s biggest economy even as it faces ambitious climate targets and rising power prices.

The six nuclear power plants contributed to around 12% of electricity production in Germany in 2021, preliminary figures showed. The share of renewable energy was almost 41%, with coal generating just under 28% and gas around 15%.

Germany aims to make renewables meet 80% of power demand by 2030 by expanding wind and solar power infrastructure.

Japan’s government on Tuesday mapped out a plan for releasing contaminated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, angering neighbouring China and South Korea.

($1 = 0.8797 euros)

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Inflation soared by the most in at least a decade in Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul last month, according to data on Saturday, and President Tayyip Erdogan’s government sharply raised nationwide electricity and prices for the new year.

Prices also jumped for petrol, car insurance and some bridge tolls, adding more strain to an economy facing surging inflation and a currency crisis that was triggered by a series of unorthodox interest rate cuts.

The Energy Market Regulatory Authority, citing high global energy inflation, said electricity prices were raised by as much as 125% for high-demand commercial users and by around 50% for lower-demand households for 2022.

Natural gas prices jumped 25% for residential use and 50% for industrial use in January, national distributor BOTAS said. The price rise was 15% for power generators.

In Istanbul, home to around a fifth of Turkey’s population of 84 million, retail prices jumped 9.65% month on month in December for an annual rise of 34.18%, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) said. Home appliance prices were up more than 20% while food rose nearly 15%.

Wholesale prices in the city jumped 11.96% from November for an annual rise of 47.10%, ITO said.

The data and adjustments will probably stoke the country’s overall annual inflation rate, which jumped above 21% in November and is seen surpassing 30% in December and heading higher still, largely due to a currency crash.

The lira shed 44% of its value against the dollar last year after a plunge since September, when the central bank, under pressure from Erdogan, began a series of aggressive rate cuts.

Other adjustments included a 20% jump in mandatory vehicle insurance costs for those with the highest deductible.

Petrol prices rose by more than half a lira per litre, while diesel prices increased by 1.29 liras, the Energy, Petroleum, Gas Stations Employers Union (EPGIS) said on Friday.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Steam rises from cooling towers of the Electricite de France (EDF) nuclear power plant in Belleville-sur-Loire, France October 12, 2021. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

By Kate Abnett and Simon Jessop

(Reuters) -The European Union has drawn up plans to label some and nuclear energy projects as “green” investments after a year-long battle between governments over which investments are truly climate-friendly.

The European Commission is expected to propose rules in January deciding whether gas and nuclear projects will be included in the EU “sustainable finance taxonomy”.

This is a list of economic activities and the environmental criteria they must meet to be labelled as green investments.

By restricting the “green” label to truly climate-friendly projects, the system aims to make those investments more attractive to private capital, and stop “greenwashing”, where companies or investors overstate their eco-friendly credentials.

Brussels has also made moves to apply the system to some EU funding, meaning the rules could decide which projects are eligible for certain public finance.

A draft of the Commission’s proposal, seen by Reuters, would label nuclear power plant investments as green if the project has a plan, funds and a site to safely dispose of radioactive waste. To be deemed green, new nuclear plants must receive construction permits before 2045.

Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.

Gas and nuclear power generation would be labelled green on the grounds that they are “transitional” activities – defined as those that are not fully sustainable, but which have emissions below industry average and do not lock in polluting assets.

“Taking account of scientific advice and current technological progress as well as varying transition challenges across member states, the Commission considers there is a role for natural gas and nuclear as a means to facilitate the transition towards a predominantly renewable-based future,” the European Commission said in a statement.

To help states with varying energy backgrounds to transition, “under certain conditions, solutions can make sense that do not look exactly ‘green’ at first glance,” a Commission source told Reuters, adding that gas and nuclear investments would face “strict conditions”.

EU countries and a panel of experts will scrutinise the draft proposal, which could change before it is due to be published later in January. Once published, it could be vetoed by a majority of EU countries or the European Parliament.

The policy has been mired in lobbying from governments for more than a year and EU countries disagree on which fuels are truly sustainable.

Natural gas emits roughly half the CO2 emissions of coal when burned in power plants, but gas infrastructure is also associated with leaks of methane, a potent planet-warming gas.

The EU’s advisers had recommended that gas plants not be labelled as green investments unless they met a lower 100g CO2e/kWh emissions limit, based on the deep emissions cuts scientists say are needed to avoid disastrous climate change.

Nuclear power produces very low CO2 emissions but the Commission sought expert advice this year on whether the fuel should be deemed green given the potential environmental impact of radioactive waste disposal.

Some environmental campaigners and Green EU lawmakers criticised the leaked proposal on gas and nuclear.

“By including them… the Commission risks jeopardising the credibility of the EU’s role as a leading marketplace for sustainable finance,” Greens president Philippe Lamberts said.

Austria opposes nuclear power, alongside countries including Germany and Luxembourg. EU states including the Czech Republic, Finland and France, which gets around 70% of its power from the fuel, see nuclear as crucial to phasing out CO2-emitting coal fuel power.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.

Cryptocurrency13 hours ago (Jan 01, 2022 08:40AM ET)

In a recent YouTube video, Charles Hoskinson highlighted the rapid growth of the (ADA) ecosystem while clarifying the concerns raised by other members of the crypto community over the past year.

“We live in a world where arbitrary groups of people get to be fact-checkers and decide what’s legitimate,” said Hoskinson while speaking about the government’s perception of cryptocurrencies. He pointed out that a vast majority of financial crimes are done with the U.S. dollar or other fiat currencies.

Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.

Stock Markets7 hours ago (Jan 01, 2022 11:30AM ET)

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A Cathay Pacific Airways Airbus A350-900 airplane approaches to land at Changi International Airport in Singapore June 10, 2018. REUTERS/Tim Chong

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways (OTC:) said on Saturday two of its aircrew whom have tested positive for the Omicron variant were sacked for breaching medical surveillance regulations.

Cathay said five of its aircrew had tested positive following their return to Hong Kong from duty, and investigation into the cases had indicated a serious breach of protocols by some of those individuals.

“Failure to comply with medical surveillance regulations will lead to disciplinary procedures. Two of the individuals are no longer employed by Cathay Pacific,” the carrier said in a statement. It gave no further details. The regulations include spending a period quarantining at home after flying.

“The actions of these individuals are extremely disappointing, as they undermine the otherwise exemplary dedication and compliance shown by our over 10,000 aircrew,” Cathay said, adding it would work closely health authorities to reinforce public health protection.

Hong Kong’s health officials said on Friday the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has made its way past some of the world’s toughest COVID-19 restrictions, with the city reporting its first cases outside its strict quarantine system.

The government said on Saturday it was investigating eight additional Omicron cases. (https://

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The jailed founder and former chief executive of the failed Italian food giant Parmalat, Calisto Tanzi, sits in his garden at his residence near Parma, northern Italy, September 27, 2004. REUTERS/Daniele La Monaca

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – Businessman Calisto Tanzi, who transformed a small family milk company into the multi-national food powerhouse Parmalat only to see it collapse in one of Italy’s biggest fraudulent bankruptcies, died on Saturday, aged 83.

Tanzi died of pneumonia in a hospital in Parma, the city in central Italy where he had made his fortune, his family said.

Parmalat collapsed in 2003 when a 14 billion euro hole was uncovered in its balance sheet, wiping out the savings of thousands of small investors in a bankruptcy that also reverberated across the worlds of banking, sport, tourism and entertainment.

The company was found to have overstated its profits and sales for years and the collapse sparked litigation worldwide against dozens of banks.

Tanzi underwent a series of trials along with other company executives and prominent Italian bankers. He was convicted of market-rigging, fraudulent bankruptcy and other charges and sentenced to several jail terms.

Born in 1938 in the small town of Collecchio, when he was 22 he took over his grandfather’s local milk company. More than four decades later the Parmalat group had about 130 factories around the world making milk, yogurt, and other food products.

His business galaxy also included a first division soccer club, a tourism company and a television network. It also sponsored ski and Formula One auto racing teams.

The Parmalat crisis erupted in 2003 when the company said a 4 billion euro bank account held by a Cayman Islands unit did not exist, forcing management to seek bankruptcy protection and triggering a criminal fraud probe.

Despite the company’s investment-grade rating at the time, concerns had previously swirled over its failure to explain why it did not use cash shown on its balance sheet to cut debt.

Authorities later found that Tanzi had hidden art treasures by masters such as Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh in friends’ homes. The art was auctioned off in 2019.

(This story fixes spelling of first name, Calisto not Callisto)

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Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.