BRUSSELS – For much of 2024, electric vehicle EV disputes have weighed heavily on the economic and trade ties between China and the European Union EU What started as an EU investigation in late 2023 spiraled into a year-long clash with additional tariffs imposed by the EU on Chinese-made EVs. However, with negotiations still ongoing, it is clear that neither side is ready to give up on finding a way forward.

Chinese car manufacturers once viewed Europe as an open and promising market. The EU’s “non-market” measures are eroding their trust and confidence.A report published Monday by the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU CCCEU in partnership with global consultancy Roland Berger, paints a sobering picture of strained ties and growing unease among Chinese businesses operating in the bloc.The report, based on a four-month survey and in-depth interviews with around 200 Chinese businesses in the EU, underscores that “uncertainty” has become a defining factor for Chinese enterprises operating in the EU.

Chinese businesses have expressed concerns about the growing politicization of commercial sectors and urged the EU to create a fair, transparent, and predictable market environment for foreign enterprises, the report says. Meanwhile, Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel has said in a different report that the EU’s punitive tariffs on Chinese battery electric vehicles are a mistake, which will do more harm than good. Trade disputes also tend to have spill-over effects, it said, and such disputes between the EU and China will strain overall bilateral relations.High tariffs on Chinese EVs are harmful to the future of the European economy, Croatian analyst Mladen Plese said in an interview with Xinhua in September. Europe should be ready for healthy competition with China, and must not follow the United States’ lead when it comes to tariffs on EVs, he said, adding, “It is in the interests of everyone in Europe to cooperate with China.

Beyond the EV sector, other industries critical to Europe’s green transition such as battery manufacturing, solar panels, wind turbines, and hydrogen technology, have also faced various challenges from the EU. The economic relationship between China and Europe is indeed facing new challenges, Denis Depoux, global managing director at Roland Berger said, noting that the EU’s complex positioning of China forces businesses to navigate an unpredictable and delicate balance.

(Xinhua)

The second powership aimed at boosting electricity supply here arrived in Guyana on Tuesday morning. The announcement was made via a Facebook post on the Guyana Power and Light GPL page. The second Power Ship is currently in Guyana’s waters, making its way to the Demerara River where it will be docked and interconnected to GPL’s grid. Once connected, the ship will add 60 Megawatts of generation to bolster GPL’s generation capacity within the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System DBIS GPL said.

The agreement to rent a second powership was officially signed on November 13, 2024. GPL’s head, Kesh Nandlall had signed the contract with the Managing Director of the Americas, UCC Holdings Mr. Antonio Neto. According to a release from the Ministry of Finance, the powership will supply an additional 75 megawatts of power to the national grid. The powership will be stationed in the Demerara River and will in its first phase, deliver 60 megawatts of generating capacity to the national grid. The remaining 15 megawatts will be delivered in a second phase. The first powership is being rented from the same company for a period of two years. That contract was signed between the GPL Inc. and UCI, a subsidiary of UCC Holdings, a company incorporated in the State of Qatar. UCC Holdings reportedly has a strategic alliance with Karpowership International, a Turkish company. That deal is for some 36 megawatts of power. Karpowership arrived in May and was set up at Everton, Berbice, Region Six. For the first vessel, Guyana had to pay a mobilization fee of US$1M to get the ship here and the contract, according to GPL, includes the provision of operation and maintenance services as part of the agreement. The utility company had said then, “the contract requires GPL to pay UCI a fee of 6.62 US cents per kWh as a monthly charter fee for the powership and a monthly operation and maintenance fee of 0.98 US cents per kWh, based on electricity generated.  (Kaieteur News)

Photo: The powership in the Demerara River.

Health Ministry warns patients could die from lack of food, water as UN official briefs Security Council on conditions. Wounded Palestinian children are taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for medical treatment after an Israeli attack on the Maghazi refugee camp in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, on December 9 Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Dozens of wounded patients at the Indonesian Hospital in the Israeli-besieged northern Gaza are at risk of dying due to lack of food and water, Palestinian health authorities have said.

The humanitarian situation inside the hospital has become extremely dangerous, as the wounded lack basic needs, which increases their suffering under the difficult conditions imposed by Israeli forces,” the ministry said in a statement. The hospital is located in Beit Lahiya in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been under a tighter Israeli military siege since early October. In its separate daily update on the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza, the ministry said that at least 28 people had been killed and 54 others wounded in “four massacres against families” over the last 24-hour reporting period.

A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defence crews cannot reach them,” the ministry added. The death toll from more than 14 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza rose to 44,786 people, the ministry said. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during attacks led by the Palestinian armed group Hamas on October 7 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive. The Palestinian news agency Wafa later reported that at least seven Palestinians had been killed and others wounded when Israeli fighter jets bombed a multistorey residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

(Al Jazeera)

President-elect Donald Trump has teased the prospect of faster environmental approvals for companies and individuals investing at least $1bn in the United States. As part of a flurry of social media posts on Tuesday, Trump indicated he planned to streamline the permitting process, as part of his plan to boost the US economy. Any person or company investing one billion dollars, or more, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals Trump wrote on his platform, Truth Social.

But the post instantly sparked a backlash among advocacy groups, which saw the proposal as a means of undermining the country’s environmental protections. The Sierra Club, one of the most prominent environmental groups in the US, even compared Trump’s plan to a “bribe Donald Trump’s plan to sell out the highest bidder confirms what we’ve long known about him,” said “He’s happy to sacrifice the wellbeing of American communities for the benefit of his Big Oil campaign donors. Trump has yet to reveal how he might implement this scheme within existing government frameworks. Longstanding laws like the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act require permitting and environmental studies for any major project that receives federal funding. During his first term as president, from 2017 to 2021, Trump took aim at what he called “unnecessary and inappropriate” environmental regulations, accusing them of overburdening US industries.

A New York Times analysis tallied that, by the end of his four-year term, Trump achieved the full rollback of approximately 112 environmental rules, with others weakened or partially dismantled. Among the laws he targeted were standards for greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and offshore drilling.Mahyar Sorour, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy.  (Al Jazeera)