SHANGHAI: China said on Saturday it will ban exports of some petroleum products to North Korea, as well as imports of textiles from the isolated North, in line with a United Nations Security Council resolution passed after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test.
The announcement from Beijing came at the end of a week that saw tensions ratchet up between the US and North Korea, with the leaders of both countries trading insults.
The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website that China would limit exports of refined petroleum products from October 1 and ban exports of condensates and liquefied natural gas immediately to comply with the latest UN sanctions.
Imports of textiles from North Korea would also be banned immediately, the statement said.
Textile trade contracts signed before September 11 would be respected if import formalities are completed before midnight on December 10, the statement said.
The moves follow the adoption of a unanimous UN Security Council agreement on sanctions after the isolated North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3.
That resolution imposed a ban on condensates and natural gas liquids, a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products and a cap on crude oil exports to North Korea at current levels.
Russia urged calm on Friday after US President Donald Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a “madman”. Kim had called Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard” a day earlier after Trump said Washington would “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatened the US or its allies.
Trump announced new US sanctions on Thursday that he said allows the targeting of companies and institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said banks doing business in North Korea would not be allowed to operate in the US.
China has also urged calm, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi telling his Japanese counterpart that Tokyo should not abandon dialogue over North Korea.
North Korea has launched dozens of missiles this year, several of them flying over Japan, as it accelerates a weapons program aimed at enabling it to target the US with a nuclear-tipped missile.
The US and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.
The North accuses the US, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.
China follows UN sanctions with bans, limits on fuel products to North Korea
China follows UN sanctions with bans, limits on fuel products to North Korea
EU regulator backs approval for Moderna’s combined COVID and flu vaccine
- Currently people need two separate shots to protect them against COVID-19 and influenza
- Moderna is banking on the COVID-flu combination shot
BRUSSELS: Europe’s medicines regulator recommended approval for Moderna’s COVID and flu combination vaccine on Friday, putting it on track to become the first single shot to protect people aged 50 and older against both illnesses.
Currently people need two separate shots to protect them against COVID-19 and influenza and the vaccines are updated regularly to match the viral strains in circulation.
Moderna is banking on the COVID-flu combination shot and also an mRNA-based flu shot to help it return to revenue growth as demand for COVID vaccines has collapsed in the years after the pandemic.
It hopes international markets will drive revenue growth this year, as anti-vaccine activist US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has disrupted the domestic market.
MODERNA SHARES HAVE PLUNGED FROM 2021 HIGHS
Shares of the biotech, which were flat in US premarket hours on Friday, have declined by nearly 90 percent from 2021 highs.
Last year, Moderna withdrew its US application for its COVID-flu combination shot to wait for efficacy data from a late-stage trial of its influenza vaccine.
Earlier this month, the company said it was waiting for guidance from the Food and Drug Administration on refiling the application.
US regulators initially refused to review a separate mRNA-based flu vaccine from the company, then reversed course a week later after Moderna amended its application.
EMA’s recommendation on Friday was based on data from a study of 8,000 participants that showed those who received mCombriax generated more antibodies than those who received separate shots against the viruses.
The study compared mCombriax with a combination of Moderna’s COVID-19 shot Spikevax and traditional flu shots from GSK and Sanofi.
EMA also considered data from a study of a similar mRNA flu vaccine, in which mCombriax triggered an adequate immune response. The shot contains messenger RNA with instructions for making proteins found on some strains of the influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2.
EMA’s recommendation will be reviewed by the European Commission, which will give the final sign off for marketing in the European Union. It was not clear how long that decision would take.
