Top US intelligence agency says China didn't interfere with US election

14:05, March 17, 2021

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  China still a big draw for top US companies

  The Lujiazui area of Shanghai has developed into a financial hub during the past three decades. (Photo: China Daily)Businesses bullish on growing profits and operations, says AmCham surveyDespite lingering uncertainties about the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 75 percent of the companies from the United States remain optimistic on expanding their operations and earning profits in China over the next two years, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said on Tuesday.Though the growth rates of many US companies had slowed due to the pandemic and the China-US economic and trade tensions, nearly 26 percent of the AmCham members reported higher earnings before interest and tax margins in China vis-a-vis their global operations, according to the chambers annual business climate survey.The study said that foreign companies in China remained positive on the business outlook, largely due to the Chinese governments early and stringent response to the pandemic, an improving investment environment, and anticipation of a more predictable policy environment.About 57 percent of the US companies expressed optimism about their profitability potential, partly due to the speed of Chinas anti-pandemic economic recovery."With China leading in economic recovery and the new US administration in place, our members are cautiously optimistic regarding business growth in China, with nearly half of them hopeful that the bilateral relationship will improve," said AmCham China Chairman Greg Gilligan.Despite widespread reports of pandemic-fueled supply chain disruptions and bilateral trade tension inspired reviews of risks and vulnerabilities, the survey results do not indicate a major shift in members manufacturing and sourcing outside of China, with about 83 percent of the respondents indicating that their existing manufacturing and sourcing will remain in China."China has continued to deepen reform and opening-up, creating a fairer and better business environmen...

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  Biden forecasts 100 million Americans to have received COVID shots in next 10 days

  US President Joe Biden. [Photo/Agencies] .WASHINGTON - US President Joe Biden said on Monday that Americans will have received 100 million shots to vaccinate them against the deadly coronavirus in the next 10 days.

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  US orders emergency agency to help with child migrant surge

  The Biden administration ordered the governments disaster emergency agency Saturday to help with a surge in migrant children crossing the southern border that has overwhelmed processing facilities.A child sits in a temporary transit center for migrants from Central America in Mexico City, capital of Mexico, Nov. 5, 2018. (File photo: Xinhua)Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called upon the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support an effort to temporarily house thousands of children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone amid criticisms that authorities were holding them for long periods in overcrowded facilities.The Health and Human Services (HHS) department is currently holding about 8,800 migrant children and the US Customs and Border Protection has hundreds more in their charge, with more arriving every day.In February alone CBP detained 9,457 unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border.Facilities are overcrowded and authorities are doubly challenged by restrictions related to Covid-19.The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that FEMA would be part of a 90-day effort to ensure the children are safely sheltered and transferred to people who will take care of them, usually relatives already living in the United States."The federal government is responding to the arrival of record numbers of individuals, including unaccompanied children, at the southwest border," the department said."Since April 2020, the number of encounters at the border has been rising due to ongoing violence, natural disasters, food insecurity, and poverty in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America."The nearly two-month-old government of President Joe Biden faces growing pressure from migrants, apparently encouraged to try to enter the United States by his rejection of previous president Donald Trumps "zero tolerance" policy toward undocumented immigrants.While migrant adults and families conti...