Day: December 20, 2023

Azerbaijan’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Elnur Mammadov met Tuesday with representatives of the Needs Assessment Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Martina Barker-Ciganikova and Goran Petrov, according to Azerbaijan in Focus, reporting AzerTac.

The discussions revolved around the preparation process for the upcoming snap presidential elections in Azerbaijan scheduled for February 7 next year, as well as the international obligations in this regard.

Deputy FM Mammadov informed the OSCE representatives about Azerbaijan’s consistent, systematic and intensive steps to ensure the free, fair and transparent conduct of the upcoming elections, as well as the measures to facilitate participation of international observers in the elections and ensure the voting right of Azerbaijani citizens living abroad or temporally staying in foreign countries.

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Azerbaijan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov met on Tuesday with Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cultural Cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoy, according to Azerbaijan in Focus, reporting AzerTac.

The discussions revolved around the cooperation between Azerbaijan and Russia across the humanitarian and cultural domains, as well as the current situation in the region.

Special Representative Mikhail Shvydkoy informed Minister Jeyhun Bayramov about the events held in Russia to mark the 100th anniversary of Great Leader Heydar Aliyev, expressing his readiness to contribute to the hosting of joint humanitarian and cultural events next year.

The meeting also saw discussions on other bilateral and regional issues of mutual concern.

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An independent panel has been investigating Daihatsu after it said in April it had rigged side-collision safety tests carried out for 88,000 small cars, most of those sold as Toyotas.

But the latest revelations suggest the scope of the scandal is far greater than previously thought and could potentially tarnish the automakers’ reputation for quality and safety.

Daihatsu is Toyota’s small-car unit and produces a number of the so-called “kei” smaller cars and trucks that are popular in Japan. The latest issues also impacted some Mazda and Subaru models sold in the domestic market and Toyota and Daihatsu models overseas, the panel found.

Toyota said “fundamental reform” was needed to revitalize Daihatsu, as well as a review of certification operations.

“This will be an extremely significant task that cannot be accomplished overnight,” Toyota said in a statement. “It will require not only a review of management and business operations but also a review of the organization and structure.”

Toyota shares were flat on Wednesday afternoon, lagging a 1.6% rise in the broader market.

Daihatsu was found to have cheated on safety tests of almost all models it currently has in production as well as some cars it made in the past, the Asahi newspaper previously reported.

The issue emerged after Daihatsu said in April it had discovered the wrongly conducted tests after a whistleblower report. It had reported the issue to regulatory agencies and halted shipments of affected models. 

The following month, it said it had stopped sales of the Toyota Raize hybrid electric vehicle and its own Rocky model after also finding problems with testing for those models.

Daihatsu produced 1.1 million vehicles over the first 10 months of the year, nearly 40% of those at overseas sites, according to Toyota data. It sold some 660,000 vehicles worldwide over that period and accounted for 7% of Toyota’s sales.

Toyota said on Wednesday that affected models included those for the southeast Asian markets of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam and central and South American countries of Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay.

Daihatsu is the latest safety issue to impact the Toyota group over the years.

An engine data scandal at Toyota’s truck- and bus-making unit, Hino Motors, in 2022 led to resignations and temporary pay cuts for some managers.

In that case Hino admitted to falsifying data on some engines dating back to 2003, or at least a decade earlier than it originally indicated.

In 2010 Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda, then chief executive, was forced to testify before U.S. Congress due to a safety crisis involving faulty accelerators.

The potential for China to use balloons for spying became a global issue in February when the United States shot down what it said was a Chinese surveillance balloon. China said the balloon was a civilian craft that accidentally drifted astray.

Taiwan is on high alert for Chinese activities, both military and political, ahead of Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections. Taipei has warned that Beijing may try to interfere to get voters to pick candidates China may prefer.

Taiwan’s defense ministry has so far this month reported four instances of Chinese balloons flying over the sensitive Taiwan Strait, then crossing airspace to the island’s north before vanishing.

Speaking to reporters, defense ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang said that from October to March Chinese balloons are more regularly spotted due to the winds at that time of year.

“Generally speaking, most of the ones we have spotted so far are weather balloons,” he said. “They are from mainland China, and not necessarily from the People’s Liberation Army.” The ministry will “handle” Chinese balloons depending on the threat assessment level, but what exactly that entails is secret, Sun added.

The ministry will announce it if the balloons are for surveillance purposes, but it is so far not possible to judge whether the balloons seen at the moment are connected to the election, he said.

The ministry has said the balloons it has spotted this month disappeared after flying north of Taiwan. Sun said the balloons may disintegrate at a certain altitude or simply vanish from the area the military keeps watch over.

China’s defense ministry has not responded to several requests for comment on the balloons.

Lo Yong-chang from the Taiwan defense ministry’s joint operations department added that between Jan. 12 and Jan. 14, during the election period, the military would go on higher alert as it has done during previous votes.

The magnitude-6.2 earthquake jolted Jishishan county near the border straddling Gansu and Qinghai provinces a minute before midnight on Monday, sending frightened residents out of homes into the cold in the dead of the night, damaging roads, power and water lines as well as agricultural production facilities, and triggering land and mudslides.

In Gansu, 113 people had been found dead as of 9 a.m. Wednesday and 782 were injured, authorities said.

The death toll in neighboring Qinghai province rose to 18 with 198 injured as of 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Seventy-eight people have been found alive in Gansu, where rescue operations ended on Tuesday afternoon, Chinese media said, as focus shifted to treating the wounded and resettling residents as a months-long winter loomed.

It was not immediately clear whether the search in Qinghai had ended or not.

In Gansu, more than 207,000 homes were wrecked and nearly 15,000 houses collapsed, affecting more than 145,000 people.

More than 128,000 emergency supply items including tents, quilts, tent lights and folding beds, were delivered while food such as steamed buns and instant noodles were provided to the victims.

The quake-stricken area is geographically a transition zone between two plateaus, featuring terrains of altitudes ranging from 1,800 to 4,300 meters with “very complex” topography, CCTV said.

Recovery from Monday night’s earthquake has been further challenged by the powerful cold snap that has gripped most of China since last week. Temperatures around the quake epicenter in Gansu fell to about minus 15 degrees Celsius Tuesday night.

According to local media citing researchers, people trapped under rubble exposed to minus 10 C conditions without help run the risk of developing hypothermia and may only be able to live for five to 10 hours if uninjured.

In Qinghai’s quake-hit Haidong, Du Haiyi said his family home had been completely leveled.

The 21-year-old told Reuters he had managed to save his mother and 16-year-old sister, who were trapped under debris the night of the quake.

“My parents were pulled out from underneath this, but I don’t know how,” Du said. “We ran to wherever we could.”

Du, an occasional laborer, said his family of seven had slept exposed to the elements with neither sustenance nor adequate covers, taking shelter in a tent provided by the local government.

Homeless in winter

Those who lost their homes in the earthquake on Monday had few options but to gather in fields, burning wheat straw for warmth. One family of seven took refuge in a car for the night as emergency tents were prioritized for the elderly and young, Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Within 50 km of the epicenter on the side of Qinghai province, the earthquake affected 22 towns and villages, but of that, two villages suffered the worst damage.

The county of Minhe county in Haidong earlier recorded 20 missing people from two villages, where a mudslide swept through half-burying many buildings in brown silt. Search and rescue operations and efforts to resettle residents were complicated as mud blocked main roads, state media said, showing footage of bulldozers clawing through mud and rubble.

“We have prepared coats with extra cotton, like military coats, and then some things to keep warm like heating equipment,” said 21-year-old Wu Saying, a rescue volunteer in

Haidong.

Food supplies were also a concern.

“I didn’t have anything to eat yesterday, and today I’m eating the food left in the house,” said Bao Yinzi, 53. “The pot is buried, the bowl is buried. There’s nothing left.”

Aftershocks

The freezing cold was not the only concern weighing on rescuers and working groups assessing the situation. 

The Gansu Provincial Seismological Bureau said through comprehensive analysis, strong aftershocks of magnitude 5 were still possible around the area in the coming days, based on the characteristics of the Monday quake, historical seismic activity

and other factors.

The aftershocks will be closely tracked so as to issue early warnings, official news agency Xinhua cited the bureau’s deputy director as saying.

Wu, the volunteer, said villagers whose homes were seriously damaged were given tents. He said he was worried about aftershocks.

By early Wednesday, there were two aftershocks of magnitude 4.0 and above, and eight of magnitude 3.0 and above, China Earthquake Networks Center said.

The quake in Gansu’s Jishishan county was logged at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), which experts consider shallow.

Earthquakes with shallow focal points can easily cause considerable damage to the ground, Xinhua reported citing a senior engineer with the China Seismological Network Center.

Earthquakes are common in provinces such as Gansu, lying on the northeastern boundary of the tectonically active Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. China’s deadliest quake in recent decades was in 2008 when a magnitude 8.0 temblor struck Sichuan, killing nearly 70,000 people.