Shanghai / (Archyde.com)
China’s central bank unexpectedly cut a key interest rate for the second time this year and pulled some liquidity from the banking system on Monday, in a bid to revive demand for credit to support the economy hit by the coronavirus.
Economists and analysts said they believe the Chinese authorities are keen to shore up the stagnant economy by allowing political divergence to widen with other major economies that are aggressively raising interest rates.
The People’s Bank of China (the central bank) said it decided to cut the interest rate on medium-term lending facilities of 400 billion yuan ($59.33 billion) for one year to some financial institutions by 10 basis points to 2.75 percent from 2.85 percent.
New bank lending in China fell more-than-expected in July, while credit growth broadly slowed, as a new outbreak of Covid, fears regarding jobs and a deepening property crisis worried businesses and consumers might take on more debt.
The People’s Bank of China attributed its move to “reasonably maintaining sufficient liquidity in the banking system”.
With 600 billion yuan of Multilateral Fund loans maturing, the operation resulted in a net withdrawal of 200 billion yuan of funds.
The People’s Bank of China reiterated that it will strengthen the implementation of its prudent monetary policy and maintain reasonably adequate levels of liquidity, while closely monitoring changes in domestic and external inflation, the bank said in its second quarter monetary policy report.
(dollar = 6.7425 Chinese yuan)
Daily Archives
August 15, 2022
United States: a child sent by mistake 1100 km from home
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
The family of a 12-year-old boy are furious with American Airlines for sending the child, who was traveling alone, to the wrong state, 1,100 miles from his home, according to ‘The Insider’.
On June 8, the pre-teen was to leave Dallas, Texas, where he had come to visit his mother, to return to his father in Columbus, Georgia. The airline got it wrong, however, and instead flew the young boy to Columbus, Ohio.
When he bought the return ticket over the phone, the child’s father claims to have repeated that his son was to go to Columbus, Georgia, and not Ohio.
“The frustrating thing is that I looked at the flights on the internet, but the company does not allow parents to buy the tickets themselves, otherwise I would have done it online,” said the father. from boy to “The Insider” media.
According to the father, the American Airlines employee assured him that he had booked a seat on the correct flight. The ticket cost US$250, plus an extra $150 since the child was traveling alone.
“They charge you, but they don’t take care of your children,” the father lamented.
It was when he was waiting for his son at the airport that the man began to worry, since the child was not arriving. The father then called the airline and following some research they eventually found him at the airport in Columbus, Ohio.
“For a while, we didn’t know where he was. It was a real nightmare!” said dad.
The child had to take a flight from Ohio back to Dallas, Texas. He then had to wait five hours before boarding another plane which eventually transported him to Columbus, Georgia. His return home took him 12 hours longer than expected.
American Airlines wrote an apology email to the family, but the boy’s father said he would no longer do business with the company. “They are incompetent,” he said.
In Houston, NASA in working order to return to the Moon
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
“I’ve worked here for 37 years, and it’s the most thrilling thing I’ve ever been involved in.” Rick LaBrode is flight director at NASA, and at the end of the month, it is under his responsibility that a historic space mission will take place: the first of the program to mark the return of the Americans to the Moon.
The day before takeoff, “I’m not going to be able to sleep much, that’s for sure,” he told AFP, in front of the dozens of screens in the flight control room in Houston, Texas. .
For the first time since the last Apollo mission in 1972, a rocket – the most powerful in the world – will propel a habitable capsule to orbit around the Moon, before returning to Earth. From 2024, astronauts will board to make the same journey, and the following year (at the earliest), they will once more set foot on the Moon.
For this first 42-day test mission, called Artemis 1, around ten people will be in the famous “Mission Control Center” room at all times, modernized for the occasion.
The teams have been rehearsing the flight plan for three years.
“It’s all completely new. A whole new rocket, a whole new ship, a whole new control center”, summarizes Brian Perry, who will be at the console in charge of the trajectory just following launch.
“I can tell you that my heart will go + bam bam, bam bam +, but I will make sure to stay focused,” he told AFP, patting his chest, he who has participated in many space shuttle flights. .
– Lunar pool –
Beyond the control room, the entire Johnson Space Center in Houston has been set to moon time.
In the middle of the huge swimming pool more than 12 meters deep where the astronauts train, a black curtain has been drawn. On one side is still the submerged replica of the International Space Station. On the other, a lunar environment is gradually created at the bottom of the basin, with gigantic models of rocks, manufactured by a company specializing in aquarium decorations.
“We started putting sand on the bottom of the pool only a few months ago. The big rocks arrived two weeks ago,” Lisa Shore, deputy head of the Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) told AFP. ). “Everything is still in development.”
In water, astronauts can experience a sensation close to weightlessness. For lunar training, they are weighted so that they only feel one-sixth of their weight.
From a room above the pool, they are guided remotely, with the four-second time lag they will face on the Moon.
Six astronauts have already trained there, and six others are to follow by the end of September, putting on NASA’s new lunar suits for the first time.
“The heyday of this building was when we were still flying the shuttles and building the space station,” said NBL chief John Haas. At the time, 400 combination training sessions were conducted per year, compared to around 150 today. But the Artémis program brings new momentum.
At the time of AFP’s visit, engineers and divers were evaluating how to push a trolley on the Moon.
– “New golden age” –
Water workouts can last up to six hours. “It’s like running a marathon, twice, but on your hands,” Victor Glover, a NASA astronaut who returned from six months in space, told AFP.
Today, he works in a building entirely dedicated to simulators. His role is to help “check the procedures and the material”, so that when those who will go to the Moon are finally chosen (of which Mr. Glover might be one), they can be prepared intensively and be quickly ” ready to go”.
Thanks to virtual reality headsets, they will be able to get used to walking in the difficult light conditions of the South Pole of the Moon, where the Artemis missions will land. There, the Sun rises very little above the horizon, constantly forming long, very black shadows.
They will also have to familiarize themselves with new ships and their software, such as the Orion capsule. In one of the simulators, seated in the commander’s seat, you have to give the joystick to dock with the future lunar space station, Gateway.
Elsewhere, a replica of the capsule, with a volume of 9 cubic meters for four passengers, is used for life-size rehearsals.
Astronauts “do a lot of emergency evacuation training here,” shows AFP Debbie Korth, deputy manager of the Orion project, on which she has worked for more than ten years.
Throughout the space center, “people are excited,” she says.
For NASA, “certainly, I believe that it is a new golden age” which is beginning.
Kang Hoon-shik resigns as Democratic Party leader candidate
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
Kang Hoon-sik, candidate for the Democratic Party’s leader [사진 제공: 연합뉴스]
Democratic Party leader Kang Hoon-sik announced his midway resignation, and the election of the party leader at the National Convention will be held in a bilateral confrontation between Lee Jae-myung and Park Yong-jin.
Candidate Hoon-sik Kang held an emergency press conference at the National Assembly this followingnoon and said, “I will stop challenging the party leader today.” said.
Candidate Kang said, “The challenge to become the party leader stops here, but the thoughts and steps to make our Democratic Party into a broader and stronger party, a younger and more capable party with authority, and a unified party where diversity and differences coexist, are busier,” Kang said. , we have to work harder,” he said.
Then, when asked regarding unification with Candidate Park Yong-jin, he drew a line, saying, “I said that I might not lead the Democratic Party by unification of the name alone.” “The choice of party members and supporters remains.
It is their share.”
In the Democratic Party’s presidential election so far, the cumulative voter turnout for the right party members is 73.28% for Lee Jae-myung, 19.90% for Park Yong-jin, and 6.83% for Kang Hoon-sik.