International

China overtakes Japan as world’s biggest car exporter

Published

3 months ago

January 31, 2024

China overtakes Japan as world’s biggest car exporter

China became the world’s largest vehicle exporter last year, surpassing Japan thanks to its global leadership in electric vehicles, according to government figures released on Wednesday.

Giants from Japan, like Toyota and Nissan, have resorted to hybrid cars rather than EVs, showing far more caution than their Chinese rivals, like BYD.

According to data issued by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association on Wednesday, the number of cars, trucks, and buses shipped increased by 16 percent to 4.42 million in the previous year.

But China exported almost 500,000 more — 4.91 million vehicles in total, as reported by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers this month.

China’s customs bureau put the number even higher at 5.22 million, a huge year-on-year rise of 57 percent, with one in three fully electric vehicles.

The country had already been shipping more vehicles than Japan on a monthly basis, but Wednesday’s data confirmed that it was also number one for a whole year.

Unlike Chinese firms, Japanese automakers including Toyota — re-confirmed on Tuesday as the world’s largest company by unit sales — also make huge volumes of vehicles in other countries.

In 2022, vehicle production in Japan excluding motorcycles totalled 7.84 million units, but overseas production was almost 17 million.

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Japanese manufacturers have long bet on hybrids that combine battery power and internal combustion engines, an area they pioneered with the likes of the Toyota Prius.

But they have vowed to up their game, with Toyota aiming to sell 1.5 million EVs annually by 2026 and 3.5 million by 2030.

The company is also hoping to mass-produce solid-state batteries that charge faster than conventional ones and give EVs more range.

Helped by strong government support, Chinese EV firms have stolen a march on more established rivals such as General Motors, Volkswagen and Toyota.

BYD in the fourth quarter of 2023 even snatched Tesla’s crown for most sales of all-electric vehicles, data this month showed.

On Tuesday BYD — it stands for “Build Your Dreams” — which also sells batteries to the likes of Tesla, BMW and Mercedes, said it expects net profit for last year to reach 29-31 billion yuan ($4.1-4.4 billion).

But China’s success in EVs has also landed its firms in hot water with regulators in Western markets worried about unfair competition for local automakers.

The European Commission is investigating Chinese state subsidies in a probe that could lead to the European Union imposing import duties.

To soothe concerns, BYD is planning to build more factories abroad including a $600 million plant in Brazil and another in Hungary.

“It’s kind of reminiscent of what happened to Japan in the 1980s, when they started exporting a lot of automotives,” said Christopher Richter, an auto analyst at CLSA.

“So the Japanese solved it by starting (to build) a lot of factories overseas… They build overseas four times more than what they export,” he said in October.

China overtakes Japan as world’s biggest car exporter

International

Man shoots stepmom trying to hug him during graduation ceremony

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2024

Trends Admin

Christian Bencomo

Man shoots stepmom trying to hug him during graduation ceremony

A woman has been shot by her stepson after she tried to hug him during a high school graduation ceremony.

The incident happened on Wednesday at Albuquerque in New Mexico, United States of America.

The man identified as Christian Bencomo, 21, is currently being held with no bail.

According to Fox News, Albuquerque Police Department (APD) said it received a call around 5 p.m. that shots were fired at the Albuquerque Convention Center.

The media outlet report that authorities said the woman was attending the Southwest Secondary Learning Center graduation for her son.

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Her stepson arrived and “as she started to hug him, he produced a handgun and shot her in the neck,” police said.

APD Communications Director, Gilbert Gallegos, told the media at the scene there was a lot of chaos at the time.

Gallegos said there were over 100 people at the charter school graduation ceremony at the time, adding that the woman was rushed to a hospital and is expected to survive.

Bencomo was held by bystanders until the police arrived, the APD said.

According to jail records at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center, Bencomo has been charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon, aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony, aggravated battery with intent to cause great bodily harm to a family member and preventative detention

Man shoots stepmom trying to hug him during graduation ceremony

International

Binance runs into trouble in Canada, fined $4.38m

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2024

Trends Admin

Binance runs into trouble in Canada, fined $4.38m

Canada’s financial watchdog, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC), has imposed a $6 million fine on Binance, a prominent cryptocurrency platform, for breaching the nation’s laws on money laundering and terrorist financing.

The penalty, valued in Canadian dollars, translates to approximately $4.38 million USD.

In a recent statement, FINTRAC revealed that Binance failed to register as a foreign money services business and neglected to report large virtual currency transactions exceeding $10,000, as required by law.

Sarah Paquet, director and CEO of FINTRAC, emphasized the importance of upholding Canada’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regulations to safeguard the nation’s economy and citizens.

Paquet affirmed FINTRAC’s commitment to assisting businesses in understanding and fulfilling their obligations under the law while maintaining a firm stance on enforcement when necessary.

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Binance, known as the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has faced regulatory scrutiny globally. Founder Changpeng Zhao recently received a four-month prison sentence in the United States for money laundering, unlicensed money transmission, and other violations related to transactions supporting terrorism, drug trafficking, and child exploitation.

In a separate case in the US, Binance agreed to a plea deal requiring the payment of over $4.3 billion in fines and restitution.

Additionally, the company is under investigation in Nigeria for alleged tax evasion, money laundering, and illicit foreign exchange rate manipulation.

Two senior Binance officials in Nigeria, Nadeem Anjarwalla and Tigran Gambaryan, faced charges related to these accusations, with Anjarwalla escaping custody in March after being arrested in February.

Binance runs into trouble in Canada, fined $4.38m

International

US says Israel may have breached international law with American weapons in Gaza

Published

2 days ago

May 11, 2024

Trends Admin

The US has grown increasingly concerned over mounting civilian deaths in Gaza

US says Israel may have breached international law with American weapons in Gaza

The US says Israel may have used American-supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law in some instances during the war in Gaza.

It is “reasonable to assess” that those arms have been used in ways “inconsistent” with Israel’s obligations, says the state department.

But it added that the US did not have complete information in its assessment and that shipments could continue.

The report was submitted to Congress on Friday after a delay.

The White House-ordered review looked into how the country, along with six others engaged in conflict, has used US-supplied arms since the start of last year.

While the report was a clear rebuke of some Israeli operations in Gaza, it stopped short of definitively saying that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign had breached international law.

Israel had had to confront an “extraordinary military challenge” fighting Hamas in Gaza, it said.

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And it added that assurances it had received from Israel about adhering to the legal use of US weapons were “credible and reliable”.

The document also noted that because Hamas “uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes and civilians as human shields”, it was often “difficult to determine facts on the ground in an active war zone” of what are legitimate targets.

But it said that given Israel’s significant reliance on US-made weapons, they had probably been used “in instances inconsistent with its IHL [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm”.

It added that “Israel has the knowledge, experience, and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations”, but that “results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions as to whether the IDF is using them effectively in all cases”.

The report said the UN and humanitarian organisations had described Israeli efforts to mitigate civilian harm as “inconsistent, ineffective and inadequate”.

The state department found that Israel did not fully co-operate with US efforts to “maximise” humanitarian aid into Gaza in the initial months of the conflict. It said, however, that this situation had changed.

“We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance,” the report said.

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One of the contributors to the report, David Satterfield, a former US ambassador to Turkey, told the BBC that the report was the first of its kind and that the US would continue to keep Israeli actions “under review”.

“This is a conflict quite unlike any that the world has seen,” he added. “We tried to take account of all those factors in coming up with a very frank, but also credible judgement.”

The report was finally released days after US President Joe Biden publicly threatened to withhold certain bombs and artillery shells from Israel if it went ahead with an assault on Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza that is packed with more than a million Palestinians.

Shortly before the report’s publication, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed President Biden’s warnings that the operation in Rafah would cross a “red line” and vowed that Israel would “stand alone” if necessary.

More than 80,000 people have fled Rafah since Monday, the UN says, with Israeli tanks reportedly massed close to built-up areas amid constant bombardment.

Israeli troops took control and closed the Rafah crossing with Egypt at the start of their operation, while the UN said it was too dangerous for its staff and lorries to reach the reopened Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 252 others were taken hostage. More than 34,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.