ANKARA

Electric car maker Tesla is suing the US government because it said President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports from China have harmed its manufacturing.

The company have requested two lists from US tariffs to be voided and for it to receive a refund with interest for tariffs it previously paid, according to the lawsuit filed in the US Court of International Trade in New York.

The two lists, which include electronic parts and materials, are part of the Trump administration's 25% tariffs on $200 billion of imports from China in 2018 and 7.5% on $120 billion in 2019.

While Tesla applied for waivers in 2019 to be exempt from parts of the tariffs, a request for relief on another 25% was rejected last year by the US Trade Representative.

Tesla also argued that rising costs because of tariffs on Chinese imports would harm the company and American consumers./aa

ANKARA

Under a swap agreement signed between the central banks of Turkey and China, the Turkish state lender Vakifbank and Chinese private lender ICBC Turkey made their first transactions in local currency, Chinese yuan.

"As Vakifbank, we are taking concrete steps to finance foreign trade in local currency, which is one of the strategic priorities of our economy management," Abdi Serdar Ustunsalih, the Vakifbank CEO, said in a statement.

"We provide our customers engaging in foreign trade with China with the opportunity to make their payments in Chinese yuan," he said.

Turkey and China realized over $21 billion trade volume in 2019, Ustunsalih noted, adding that there is a serious potential in trading in local currencies.

"I believe that the diversification of the currencies used in foreign trade will positively contribute to a more stable foreign trade and investment environment," he also said.

Also expressing his pleasure to cooperate with ICBC group and ICBC Turkey, Ustunsalih said under the goodwill agreement signed with the Group in 2017, Vakifbank has been cooperating in different areas such as bilateral loans, syndication, trade financing, treasury, and other debt capital market transactions.

ICBC Turkey is the first Chinese bank that started operations in Turkey by acquiring majority shares of a local bank in May 2015.

The swap agreement was signed between Turkey's Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China in 2019.

Under the deal, commercial banks will be able to expand their product range corresponding to international trade and finance activities with a strategy based on the swap agreement./aa

DHAKA, Bangladesh

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), a state-run aid body, on Wednesday distributed 5,000 packages of dry food items among Rohingya in Bangladesh's refugee camps.

"Before the start of winter, we distributed 5,000 packages which included spices, daily use items, and cologne. Those are gifts from the people of Turkey," Ismail Gundogdu, the agency's Bangladesh coordinator, told Anadolu Agency.

The food items include potatoes, onions, lentils, pepper, turmeric, salt, garlic and sugar. Gundogdu said: "We started supporting displaced Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh in 2017."

Until 2019, TIKA distributed hot meals to approximately 25,000 Rohingya refugees on a daily basis.

This April, TIKA donate 5,000 personal care packages for the refugees in camps in Bangladesh’s southeastern district of Cox's Bazar.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing their number in Bangladesh above 1.2 million./aa

ANKARA(AA)

The cost of producing gas in the newly discovered Black Sea gas field will be more affordable than current gas imports, Turkey's Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez said Wednesday. 

Speaking during an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency's Editors' Desk, Donmez highlighted the recent positive developments of the country's exploration and drilling activities in the ultra-deep water Sakarya gas field in the Black Sea, which the Fatih drillship discovered after just one month of drilling.

"There is a high possibility that the current reserve amount of 320 bcm [billion cubic meters] will be revised upwards following the completion of test drills and surveys," Donmez said.

Donmez revealed that the target is to connect the discovered gas to the national gas transmission network by 2023, which according to the ministry’s estimations will provide cheaper gas than the prices charged for Turkey’s current gas imports.

The discovery is set to decrease the country’s oil and gas dependence on foreign sources, which is part of its national plan to shed reliance on energy imports while also raising hopes that it will get discounts on gas imports currently under negotiation.

“It is extremely important for a strong Turkish economy,” Donmez said.

As part of the country’s plan towards more energy self-determination, Donmez explained that Turkey has developed resources to support its energy supply security and meet nearly 45-50 billion cubic meters of annual consumption through its LNG and Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) terminals.

One private sector LNG terminal and another state-run by Turkey’s crude oil and natural gas pipeline trading company, BOTAS, which have been connected to Floating Storage Regasification Units (FSRU) also offer alternative fuel to pipeline gas, the energy minister explained.

According to Donmez, the engineering studies for the Black Sea gas find are planned for completion by mid-October, of which the findings will then be shared with the public.

On Aug. 21, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the discovery of 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves in the Tuna-1 well at the Sakarya gas field, located around 170 kilometers off the Black Sea coast.

According to the Energy Market Regulatory Authority's (EMRA) data, the majority of Turkey's gas imports at 33.6% came from Russia last year, followed by Azerbaijan and Iran with 21.2% and 17.1% respectively.

The country, in conjunction with receiving imported pipeline gas from three countries under long-term purchase agreements, also imports gas in the form of LNG from Algeria and Nigeria under long-term LNG contracts and spot LNG from different countries, including Qatar and the US.

Chinese officials have admitted that birth rates have plummeted among its ethnic Uighurs, fuelling claims that Beijing is subjecting its Muslim minority to a campaign of forced birth control.

Official statistics show that in Xinjiang, the north-western province where most of the 10 million strong Uighur community live, birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018.

The figures follow accusations that Beijing is attempting to reduce the Uighur population by threatening women with fines or spells in mass detention camps if they flout harsh family planning measures.

At least a million Uighurs are believed to have passed through the detention camps in recent years, which Beijing insists are voluntary schools to teach Uighurs of the dangers of Islamic extremism.

Human rights groups say they are used to eradicate Uighur culture, in tandem with forced abortion and sterilisation policies that amount to "demographic genocide".

The statistics on birth rates were released by Xinjiang to CNN in response to an article by the news organisation in July that alleged widespread mistreatment of Uighur women.

One mother of three, who had already spent time in an internment camp, claimed that Xinjiang officials had told her she would serve extra time there unless she agreed to sterilisation, despite her wanting to have a fourth child.

Chinese officials disputed much of the CNN report, which was based partly on findings by Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow at Washington's Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who is known for his research on Xinjiang.

But they said that the birth rate in the region had dropped from 15.88 per 1,000 people in 2017 to 10.69 per 1,000 people in 2018. That is a drop of roughly one-third, or the equivalent of 40,000 babies.

Up until 2015, the Chinese government enforced a "one-child" family planning policy countrywide, which allowed most urban couples no more than one baby. Ethnic minorities, such as the Uighurs, were typically allowed to have up to three, although in practice often had many more.

Beijing claims the drop in numbers simply reflects family planning policies now being properly enforced for the first time. However, critics have claimed that Uighur women are sometimes threatened with detention if they have more than two children.

Some women also claim to have been given medications in detention camps that stop them menstruating, or implanted against their will with intra-uterine devices to stop further pregnancies.

According to the statistics released by Xinjiang officials to CNN, there were almost 1,000 new IUD implants per 100,000 people in Xinjiang in 2018 - or 80 per cent of China's total for the year.

The Xinjiang officials also told CNN that they attributed the drop in the birth rate in 2018 to improved prosperity in Xinjiang, reducing the need for its residents to have as many children. It also denied having birth-control policies tailored for a "single ethnic minority".

"The rights and interests of Uighur and other ethnic minorities have been fully protected," the officials said. "The so-called 'genocide' is pure nonsense."

In response, Mr Zenz claimed that any fall in a natural birth rate would normally take place gradually over a matter of five years or a decade. In a statement to CNN, he also questioned the officials' claims that women who had been sterilised had requested the treatment voluntarily, saying it was unlikely that "17 times more women spontaneously wanted to be sterilised."

The Telegraph

When fossil fuel industries collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world could've used it as an opportunity to transition to renewable energy sources. Instead, they've poured billions of dollars into saving polluting industries instead of meeting their pledges to massively cut greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, CNN reports.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the collapse of fossil fuel industries around the world: Oil famously tanked below $0 a barrel in April, while coal companies were projected to "never recover" from pandemic losses. But several global economies are doing their best to make sure that doesn't happen.

In Poland, for example, the government bought up $35 million in unwanted coal to help that struggling industry, CNN reports. The EU as a whole originally planned to tie its $2 trillion coronavirus relief package with its pledge for carbon neutrality, but Poland was able to wiggle its way out of that deal, and the EU only ended up putting 30 percent of the relief funds toward the climate. Canada funneled $1.1 billion into a new oil pipeline, while Australia is quickly building a new coal mine and India is opening dozens more, all under the guise of helping the economy recover from COVID-19.

All of these contradictory moves come as countries claim they're committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and other goals for cutting emissions to avoid devastating climate change. But while emissions did reduce a bit while coronavirus lockdowns were in place, they won't help the climate in the long term, and are still far from the levels of climate action the world needs to avoid absolute catastrophe, data from the Climate Action Tracker reveals. CNN.