BEIJING: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Beijing on Saturday to discuss efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and prepare President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to China.
Tillerson was scheduled to meet with President Xi Jinping after talks with top diplomat Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, ahead of Trump’s trip in November.
The visit comes as relations between the two superpowers appear to be improving after months of tensions over how to handle North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear provocations.
Trump has repeatedly urged Xi to exert more economic pressure on Pyongyang to convince the renegade regime to give up its nuclear ambitions.
China, North Korea’s main trade partner, has responded by backing a slew of new United Nations sanctions.
For its part, Beijing has insisted that the sanctions must be coupled with efforts to organize peace talks, but Trump and Kim have traded increasingly personal insults that have raised fears that the crisis could spark a conflict.
The acting US assistant secretary for East Asia, Susan Thornton, told skeptical US lawmakers ahead of Tillerson’s trip that China appears to be on board with the plan to squeeze Pyongyang.
“We are working closely with China to execute this strategy and are clear-eyed in viewing the progress — growing, if uneven — that China has made on this front,” she said.
“We have recently seen Chinese authorities take additional actions,” she said, referring to new controls on the cross-border trade and finance that is North Korea’s economic lifeline.
On Thursday, China said it was ordering North Korean firms on its territory to close by January.
The announcement came days after China confirmed it will limit exports of refined petroleum products to North Korea from October 1 while banning imports of textiles from its neighbor.
The measures were in accordance with UN sanctions that were approved earlier in September after North Korea detonated its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb — a test that triggered an earthquake felt across the border in China.
Trump’s November trip will be part of a tour that will also take in regional allies Japan and South Korea.
US Secretary of State Tillerson in China to pile pressure on North Korea
US Secretary of State Tillerson in China to pile pressure on North Korea
58 still in hospital following New Year Swiss bar blaze
- Over half of those wounded in the fire in the ski resort of Crans-Montana are in hospital
- 21 injured people were still in Swiss hospitals, including 12 in Lausanne and eight in Zurich
GENEVA: A total of 58 people are still in hospital following the deadly inferno that engulfed a Swiss bar during New Year celebrations, Switzerland’s Keystone-ATS news agency reported Tuesday.
Nearly eight weeks on from the tragedy that killed 41 people and injured 115 others, just over half of those wounded in the fire in the ski resort of Crans-Montana are in hospital.
The National Network for Disaster Medicine told ATS that as of Monday, 21 injured people were still in Swiss hospitals, including 12 in Lausanne and eight in Zurich, two of whom are still in intensive care.
Nine others were in rehabilitation clinics, including eight in Sion, capital of the southwestern Wallis region where Crans-Montana is situated.
A further 28 patients are still receiving treatment abroad: 14 in France, eight in Italy, four in Germany and two in Belgium. Those 28 include 11 Swiss nationals.
Le Constellation, a bar in upscale Crans-Montana, caught fire in the early hours of January 1. Those killed were mostly teenagers; 20 of them were minors.
Prosecutors believe the fire started when champagne bottles with sparklers attached were raised too close to the ceiling in the bar’s basement level, igniting the sound insulation foam.
While those suffering the lightest injuries were discharged in the days immediately following the blaze, on January 5, a total of 83 people were still in hospital.
The bar’s owners, French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti, are under criminal investigation, facing charges of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.
Two others are also under criminal investigation: Crans-Montana’s current head of public safety and a former fire safety officer in the town.
Meanwhile former Swiss president Doris Leuthard will head the Beloved Foundation, set up in response to the “outpouring of solidarity” following the tragedy, the Wallis cantonal government said Tuesday.
“The foundation’s primary goal is to provide financial assistance to the bereaved families of the deceased, all those injured, their directly-affected relatives,” plus the firefighters and first responders who dealt with the disaster, it said.
The foundation will also support eventual memorial projects.
Wallis canton has put forward an initial one million Swiss francs ($1.3 million) out of a planned 10 million donation. In total, around 17 million francs have been pledged to the foundation.
