28/03/2026

SATURDAY | MAR 28, 2026

9 Cyclone triggers outages at Australian LNG plants

China seeks to boost trade with US BEIJING: China wishes to strengthen economic cooperation with the United States to avoid “vicious competition”, commerce minister Wang Wentao told US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, according to a readout released yesterday. The two met on Thursday on the sidelines of a World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference in Cameroon’s capital, less than two months ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing. “China is willing to strengthen multilateral, and regional economic and trade cooperation with the United States,“ Wang told Greer, according to a statement by the Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce. Wang said the two powers must “properly handle the relationship between competition and cooperation” and “avoid vicious competition”. The world’s two largest economies were locked in a bitter trade battle last year before agreeing to a truce in October. High-level talks in Paris this month between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng also helped to ease tensions. Nevertheless, issues including US tariffs, a trade balance in China’s favour and US restrictions on exports of advanced technologies continue to threaten relations. Wang expressed “grave concerns” on Thursday regarding recently announced US trade investigations signaling the possibility of fresh tariffs. Washington’s trade investigations target 60 economies, including China, and will look into “failures to take action on forced labor” and whether these burden or restrict US commerce. The White House has said Trump would visit Beijing on May 14-15, with the timing postponed by several weeks as a result of the war in the Middle East. – AFP Court rules against Grok AI in abuse case AMSTERDAM: A Dutch court on Thursday ordered Elon Musk’s xAI and chatbot Grok not to generate and distribute images “undressing” adults or children, or showing them in sexualised poses with scant or no clothing, without their consent in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam Court’s preliminary injunction, which could set a precedent in Europe, is one of the first times a judge has weighed in on xAI’s responsibility for making tools that could be used to easily create sexualised images, amid a flood of complaints and investigations over Grok around the world. In a written decision, the court said xAI and Grok would be prohibited from “generating and/or distributing sexual imagery, whereby persons are partially or wholly stripped naked without having given their explicit permission” and it would impose fines of 100,000 euros (US$115,350) per day if the companies do not comply. It also ordered xAI not to offer Grok on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, while in breach of the order. The case was brought by Offlimits, a Dutch nonprofit group that combats online sexual abuse, in cooperation with the nonprofit Victims Support Fund. xAI did not respond to requests for comment. – Reuters

SYDNEY: A cyclone off Australia triggered outages at two of the world’s largest liquid natural gas (LNG) plants, energy giant Chevron said yesterday as Middle East turmoil stoked soaring demand for the fuel. The Gorgon and Wheatstone gas plants in Australia collectively supply more than 5% of the world’s liquefied natural gas, according to Chevron figures. Both suffered outages on o Full production to resume as soon as possible: Chevron

Association. The US-Israel war on Iran has caused major disruptions to global supplies of both oil and LNG. Qatar, the world’s second-largest LNG producer, has seen LNG exports plunge as fuel tankers steer clear of the Strait of Hormuz. LNG prices in some parts of Asia have more than doubled. Chevron is one of two major natural gas producers in Western Australia, alongside Woodside Energy. Between them, the companies account for more than 15%of international natural gas exports. With LNG profits set to soar on the back of the Middle East crisis, Australia is reportedly mulling a new tax on fuel exporters. – AFP ‘Green village’ shrugs off energy crisis FELDHEIM: While the world frets about surging energy prices pushed up by the Middle East war, one small German village has been reaping the benefits of its turn to climate-friendly renewables. Surrounded by wind turbines and studded with solar panels, Feldheim, population 130, boasts its own electricity and heating networks, supplied entirely by cheap local energy, also including biogas. When it comes to keeping the lights on, “what’s happening in the rest of the world doesn’t really interest us,“ 56-year-old Michael Knape, who served as Feldheim mayor for almost a quarter-century, told AFP. Feldheim, 80km southwest of Berlin, started its move towards clean renewables in the 1990s after German unification and by 2010 was boasting of its “energy self sufficiency”. The village has since attracted attention from across the world as an example of Germany’s decades old energy transition project away from fossil fuels and nuclear power. The process has benefited from unique local conditions and significant investments. Like much of the eastern state of Brandenburg where it is located, Feldheim sits on a flat, windswept plain, meaning the tens of nearby wind turbines generate plenty of energy. While one of them provides enough power for the whole village, the others earn it money through taxes and charges levied on the operators. As for heating, a biogas plant runs on slurry and leftover grain from an agricultural cooperative. “We hope it always stays like this, this model makes us happy,“ said Petra Richter, 62, a long-time resident of Feldheim. – AFP

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Thursday as Tropical Cyclone Narelle lurked off the coast of Western Australia. “Chevron Australia is working to restore production at the Gorgon and Wheatstone gas facilities following production outages,” Chevron said in a statement. “We will resume full production at both facilities once it is safe to do so.” It added that the Gorgon gas plant, which is the larger of the two, was continuing to operate at a reduced capacity. It was not immediately clear to what extent supply might be impacted. Narelle was inching towards the coast of Western Australia yesterday, according to the

Meteorology. It also said the category four system was forecast to bring “destructive wind gusts and heavy rainfall” to some coastal areas. A sprawling industrial complex sitting just off Australia’s western coast, the Gorgon plant is capable of pumping out more than 15 million metric tonnes of gas each year. At full capacity, the smaller Wheatstone project produces almost nine million metric tonnes. Australia is one of the world’s largest LNG exporters, and is a particularly crucial supplier to import-reliant northern Asia. Some 40% of Japan’s LNG comes from Australia, according to the Asia Natural Gas and Energy

UK cops to reopen Andrew Tate probe LONDON: British police on PRETTY PETALS ... A woman from China wearing a traditional hanfu dress is photographed with cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. – REUTERS P I C

prospect of conviction. The three women are now suing Tate in a civil case along with a fourth woman. The High Court trial is set to begin in June 2026. The Tate brothers are accused of tax evasion and money laundering in the UK. They also face separate rape and human trafficking allegations brought by different women and investigated by Bedfordshire Police, which covers their hometown of Luton, also north of London. Bedfordshire Police secured a European arrest warrant over the allegations, with a Romanian judge ordering the brothers to be extradited to the UK after legal proceedings in Romania. The influencer brothers deny all accusations. – AFP

allegations of trafficking minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering. Hertfordshire police probed sexual offence allegations made by three women against Andrew Tate for four years before the case was closed in 2019. “It is long overdue for Hertfordshire Constabulary to reopen the investigation into our allegations of rape, sexual abuse and assault by Andrew Tate,“ the women said in a statement. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which brings criminal cases in England and Wales, did not charge the social media figure following the police investigation in 2019. CPS previously said the claims were fully investigated and did not meet its legal test for a realistic

Thursday said it would reopen a probe into rape and sexual assault allegations made by women against self-proclaimed misogynist influencer Andrew Tate between 2014 and 2015. It is the latest in a slew of investigations into Tate, a British-US citizen who promotes his divisive views to millions of followers on social media. “Hertfordshire Constabulary can confirm that a decision has been made to reinvestigate allegations made by women between 2014 and 2015 relating to rape and sexual assault offences,“ the police force, based north of London, said in a statement. In Romania, where they have been based in recent years, Tate and his brother Tristan face