BEIJING: Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Sunday congratulated new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on his election, state media reported, the first senior leader in Beijing to do so publicly.
China is “willing to work with the new UK government to consolidate mutual political trust and expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” Li told Starmer, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Their call came after days of silence from top officials in Beijing, with the Chinese foreign ministry saying only that it noted the results of the UK election.
By comparison, Chinese leader Xi Jinping congratulated Iran’s incoming president Masoud Pezeshkian just hours after his election on Saturday.
China was Britain’s fifth-largest trading partner as of 2023, according to the UK Department for Business and Trade.
But diplomatic relations between the two countries have been icy in recent years, with Beijing and London sparring over tightening communist control in former British colony Hong Kong.
The two sides have also traded accusations of espionage, with Beijing saying last month that MI6 had recruited Chinese state employees to spy for the UK.
Xinhua on Sunday said Li told Starmer that the “strengthening of bilateral coordination and cooperation was in the interests of both sides.”
Chinese Premier Li congratulates new British PM Starmer
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Chinese Premier Li congratulates new British PM Starmer
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
