Australia aims to continue to boost relations with China as it seeks to fully restore trade ties with its largest export market.
“China is our major trading partner, and we’ve worked to change the relationship,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters yesterday in Townsville, Australia. “We believe that it is in both our countries’ interests to continue to develop more positive relations.”
New coal import deals have been struck this month after China’s authorities signaled an easing of an informal ban on Australian cargoes, imposed in 2020 as relations soured over issues including the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other measures continue to hamper trade in everything from lobsters to wine and timber.
“It is in Australia’s interest to be able to export without any impediments to China,” Albanese said. “It’s also in China’s interests to receive those exports from Australia.”
Since the election of Albanese’s Labor government in May, ties have stabilized, with top officials from both sides meeting for the first time in years.
Albanese met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in November at the G20 summit in Bali, while Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) traveled to Beijing last month.
Addressing other matters, Albanese said that Australia plans to invest A$70 million (US$48.86 million) in the development of a green hydrogen hub in Queensland state as the nation aims to export the fuel.
The funding joins more than A$450 million already allocated to spur construction of clean-energy equipment manufacturing, solar and wind farms, and export infrastructure in traditional mining and coal areas including the Hunter Valley in New South Wales and Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
Developers including billionaire Andrew Forrest are attempting to use clean electricity to extract hydrogen from water and ship the fuel overseas. Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries aims to start producing 15 million tonnes a year by 2030.
“This isn’t a niche industry,” Albanese said. “This is something that will make an enormous difference to Australia’s economy.”
Creating a hydrogen industry could generate A$50 billion in GDP for Australia and create more than 16,000 jobs, Albanese’s office said in a statement.
Global shipments of electrolyzers — equipment used to make hydrogen from water — are likely to double this year, BloombergNEF said.
Australia faces major competition in establishing itself as a global hydrogen powerhouse from nations including the US and India.
US President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act showers money on domestic hydrogen production and projects from New York to Hawaii are vying for US$7 billion in federal funding.
Philippine vlogger Rosanel Demasudlay holds a heart-shaped “virginity soap” bar in front of the camera and assures her hundreds of YouTube followers that it can be safely used to “tighten” their vaginas. The video is part of a barrage of bogus and harmful medical posts on social media platforms where Filipinos rank among the world’s heaviest users. Even before COVID-19 pandemic restrictions confined people to their homes and left them fearful of seeing a doctor, many in the Philippines sought remedies online because they were cheaper and easier to access. During the pandemic, the Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Fact Check team saw an explosion
BACKING THE APPLICATION: Ankara’s move is expected to enable Helsinki to join the alliance, while the Turkish president is still opposed to backing Sweden’s application Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday ended months of diplomatically charged delays and asked the Turkish parliament to back Finland’s bid to join NATO. A simultaneous decision by fellow holdout Hungary to schedule a Finnish ratification vote for March 27 means the US-led defense alliance would likely grow to 31 nations within a few months. NATO’s expansion into a country with a 1,340km border with Russia would double the length of the bloc’s frontier with its Cold War-era foe. Finland had initially aimed to join together with fellow NATO aspirant Sweden, which is facing a litany of disputes with Turkey that
The US and the Philippines plan to announce new sites as soon as possible for an expanded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which gives the Western power access to military bases in the Southeast Asian country. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr last month granted the US access to four military bases, on top of five existing locations under the 2014 EDCA, amid China’s increasing assertiveness regarding the South China Sea and Taiwan. Speaking at the Basa Air Base in Manila, one of the existing EDCA sites, US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said the defense agreements between the two countries
Former US president Donald Trump said he expects to be “arrested” tomorrow over an alleged hush-money payment to a porn star in 2016 and urged his supporters to protest as prosecutors gave signs of moving closer to an indictment. If indicted, he would be the first former US president to be charged with a crime, marking an explosive and unpredictable development in next year’s White House race as Trump seeks again to clinch the Republican nomination. “Leading Republican candidate & former President of the United States of America will be arrested on Tuesday of next week,” the 76-year-old said on Saturday on
RSS