The European Union on Saturday called on China to reverse its ban on the BBC World News television channel imposed in apparent retaliation for Britain’s pulling of the licence of state-owned Chinese broadcaster CGTN.

The EU said in a statement that Beijing’s move further restricted freedom of expression and access to information inside its borders,” and violated both the Chinese constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The statement also said that Hong Kong’s announcement that its public broadcaster would also stop carrying BBC broadcasts added to the erosion of the rights and freedoms that is ongoing” in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory since the imposition last year of a sweeping new national security law.

The EU remains strongly committed to safeguarding media freedom and pluralism, as well as protecting the right to freedom of expression online and offline, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information without interference of any kind,” the statement said.

While Britain is no longer in the EU, it remains a member of the Council of Europe, which oversees a 1989 agreement linking broadcasting licenses. Britain, the U.S. and foreign correspondents based in China have also expressed dismay over the BBC ban.

China’s move Thursday was largely symbolic, because BBC World was shown only on cable TV systems in hotels and apartment compounds for foreigners and some other businesses. However, it comes against the backdrop of growing conflict between Beijing and Western governments over a slew of issues ranging from human rights to trade and the COVID-19 pandemic in which Chinese criticisms over foreign media coverage have played a prominent role.

China’s National Radio and Television Administration said BBC World News coverage of the country violated requirements that news reporting be true and impartial, reflecting complaints over BBC reports about the government’s initial response to the virus outbreak in China. Other complaints were over allegations of forced labor and sexual abuse in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, home to Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups. The EU statement specifically linked the ban to BBC reporting on those topics.

It wasn’t clear whether BBC reporters in China would be affected. Last year, Beijing expelled foreign reporters for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times amid disputes with the Trump administration and complaints over media criticism of the ruling Communist Party.

Britain’s communications watchdog, Ofcom, revoked the license for CGTN, China’s English-language satellite news channel, on Feb. 4, citing links to the Communist Party, among other reasons.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Ofcom acted on political grounds based on ideological bias.

Losing its British license was a major blow for CGTN, which is part of a global effort by the party to promote its views and challenge Western media narratives about China, into which it has poured enormous resources. CGTN has a European operations hub in London.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the European Times staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

President of the European Council Charles Michel has reaffirmed European Union’s continued support to Bangladesh for a lasting and peaceful solution to the Rohingya crisis.

He said this when Ambassador Mahbub Hassan Saleh, the newly-appointed Head of Mission of Bangladesh to the EU, met him to present his Letters of Credence in Brussels on Thursday.

Ambassador Saleh stressed the need for Myanmar authorities taking credible measures to generate confidence among the forcibly-displaced Rohingyas, temporarily sheltered in Bangladesh, for their safe, dignified and sustainable return to the Rakhine State.

President Michel recalled his previous meetings with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, including the last one held in Madrid in December 2019.

Ambassador Saleh also conveyed the greetings of the president and the prime minister of Bangladesh to the president of the European Council.

The European Council president acknowledged Bangladesh’s preoccupation with climate change, and noted the current presidency of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF).

Saleh suggested establishing a dedicated bilateral platform between Bangladesh and the EU for exchanging views and working more closely to address the challenges of climate change.

He also suggested holding a CVF-EU leaders’ meeting, during the lead-up to UNFCCC COP-26 in the UK later this year.

Michel responded positively to these suggestions.

The Bangladesh ambassador also underscored the need for expanding the scope of Bangladesh-European Union partnership.

He also conveyed Bangladesh prime minister’s invitation to the European Council president to visit the country at his earliest convenience.

The meeting took place following the existing health regulations in Belgium.

The ambassador was accompanied by Md Safiul Azam, counsellor (commerce) and Kaniz Fatema, first secretary (political) of the mission.

A group of more than 500 scientists have signed a letter calling on the EU to stop treating the burning of biomass as carbon neutral.

They are asking governments around the world, including Europe, to end subsidiaries for burning wood that are harmful to biodiversity and pose a serious threat to the world’s forests.

They claim that for each kilowatt hour of heat or electricity produced by burning trees, “it will likely add two or three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels.” This is because wood is not as energy-dense as fuels like coal or oil meaning more has to be burnt in order to generate the same amount of power.

The letter is addressed to EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel as well as US President Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Suga and South Korean President Moon.

It was signed by hundreds of scientists and economists including former chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele. The group worry that this “false solution” is replacing real efforts to reduce carbon emissions in countries around the world.

“Fighting the climate emergency without changing the EU’s biomass rules is like trying to bail out a boat with a hole in the bottom,” says Alex Mason, Senior Policy Officer at WWF European Policy Office.

He adds that it is what you are burning that matters “not how sustainably the forest was managed”.

Why is burning wood a bad idea?

Although technically ‘renewable’, regrowing trees takes years. Natural regeneration of forests has been found to capture carbon faster and for longer than replanting efforts. Simply leaving trees to grow on their own could potentially be the “single largest natural climate solution available to us”.

For years, producers of paper and wood have used their waste to generate electricity which did not lead to extra trees being cut down.

But, the group of scientists say, “in recent years there has been a misguided move to cut down whole trees or divert large portions of stem wood for bioenergy, releasing carbon that would otherwise stay locked up in forests.”

“If the world supplied just an additional 2 per cent of its energy from wood, it would need to double its commercial wood harvests,” reads the letter. They add that there is good evidence that increased use of bioenergy already means more forests are being harvested in Europe.

“The revision of the EU renewables law is a crucial chance; the Commission must listen to scientists and citizens and stop trees being burned in the name of the climate,” says Mason.

ESPOO, Finland, Feb. 12, 2021 — Europe has always been excellent in academic research, but over the past few decades commercializing research projects has been slow compared to international competition. This is starting to change with quantum technologies. As one of the largest efforts in Europe and worldwide, Germany announced € 2 Billion funding into quantum programs in June 2020, from which €120 Million are invested in this current round of research grants.

Today, IQM announced a Quantum project consortium that includes some of Europe’s leading startups (ParityQC, IQM), industry leaders (Infineon Technologies), research centers (Forschungszentrum Jülich), supercomputing centers (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre), and academia (Freie Universität Berlin) has been awarded € 12.4 Million from the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (Announcement in German).

The scope of the project is to accelerate commercialization through an innovative co-design concept. This project focuses on application-specific quantum processors, which have the potential to create a fastlane to quantum advantage. The digital-analog concept used to operate the processors will further lay the foundation for commercially viable quantum computers. This project will run for four years and aims to develop a 54-qubit quantum processor.

The project is intended to support the European FET Flagship project EU OpenSuperQ, announced in 2018 which is aimed at designing, building, and operating a quantum information processing system of up to 100 qubits. Deploying digital-analog quantum computing, this consortium adds a new angle to the OpenSuperQ project and widens its scope. With efforts from Munich, Berlin and Jülich, as well as Parity QC from Austria, the project builds bridges and seamlessly integrates into the European quantum landscape.

“The grant from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany is a huge recognition of our unique co-design approach for quantum computers. Last year when we established our office in Munich, this was one of our key objectives. The concept allows us to become a system integrator for full-stack quantum computers by bringing together all the relevant players. As Europe’s leading startup in quantum technologies, this gives us confidence to further invest in Germany and other European countries” said Dr. Jan Goetz, CEO of IQM Quantum Computers.

“DAQC is an important project for Germany and Europe. It enables us to take a leading role in the area of quantum technologies. It also allows us to bring quantum computing into one of the prime academic supercomputing centres to more effectively work on the important integration of high-performance computing and quantum computing. We are looking forward to a successful collaboration,” said Prof. Dr Martin Schulz, Member of the Board of Directors, Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ).

About IQM Quantum Computers:

IQM is a European leader in superconducting quantum computers, headquartered in Espoo, Finland. Since its inception in 2018, IQM has grown to 80+ employees and has also established a subsidiary in Munich, Germany, to lead the co-design approach. IQM delivers on-premises quantum computers for research laboratories and supercomputing centers and provides complete access to its hardware. For industrial customers, IQM delivers quantum advantage through a unique application-specific co-design approach. IQM has raised € 71 Million from VCs firms and also public grants and is also building Finland’s first quantum computer.

For more information, visit www.meetiqm.com.

Source: IQM Finland Oy

European Commission Press release Brussels, 13 Feb 2021 Robust new trade enforcement rules have entered into force that will further strengthen the EU’s toolbox in defending its interests.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association is demanding the EU install more electric vehicle charging stations in a letter co-signed with Transport & Environment and the European Consumer Organization. This marks the hundredth time (rough estimate) an auto lobbying entity has tried to pressure the government into spending a fortune to drastically alter the European infrastructure to support the planned glut of EVs.

But it might be a fair request. Regulatory actions have effectively forced the industry into a corner and it now seems giddy at the prospect of an electrified world. The only real downside is that the charging infrastructure and power grids aren’t ready. ACEA estimates that the EU will need to build one million public charging points by 2024, with hopes of seeing three million installed before 2030.

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