HONG KONG — Chinese health authorities said on Thursday they had detected the new mutated mpox strain clade Ib as the viral infection spreads to more countries after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global public health emergency last year.

China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said it had found a cluster outbreak of the Ib subclade that started with the infection a foreigner who has a history of travel and residence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Four further cases have been found in people infected after close contact with the foreigner. The patients’ symptoms are mild and include skin rash and blisters.

Mpox spreads through close contact and causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body. Although usually mild, it can be fatal in rare cases.

WHO last August declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that spread to neighboring countries.

The outbreak in DRC began with the spread of an endemic strain, known as clade I. But the clade Ib variant appears to spread more easily through routine close contact, including sexual contact.

The variant has spread from DRC to neighboring countries, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, triggering the emergency declaration from the WHO.

China said in August last year it would monitor people and goods entering the country for mpox.

The country’s National Health Commission said mpox would be managed as a Category B infectious disease, enabling officials to take emergency measures such as restricting gatherings, suspending work and school, and sealing off areas when there is an outbreak of a disease. — Reuters

HAVANA — Cuba said on Wednesday it had leased farmland to a Vietnamese company to grow rice, a first since the 1959 revolution which kicked all foreign landowners out.

The Communist Party daily, Granma, said a state agricultural company had partnered with the unnamed firm for three years to cultivate the grain on 3,000 hectares (7,413 acres) in western Pinar del Rio province, hinting the lease and acreage would be extended.

“For the first time, a process of handing over land to a foreign company is being carried out to take charge of its cultivation,” engineer Jorge Feliz Chamizo, who is the deputy director of the Granos de Los Palacios agroindustrial company, was quoted as stating.

Cuba consumes up to 700,000 metric tons of rice annually, most imported from Vietnam.

But the import dependent county’s main staple has been in short supply in recent years due to an economic depression sparked by a lack of convertible currency to import food, fuel, spare parts, raw materials and agricultural inputs.

Local rice production peaked at around 250,000 metric tons of consumable rice in 2018 before the crisis began, and has fallen more than 80% since then, the National Statistics Office has reported.

Granma also reported the venture would be the first to hire labor directly, instead of through a state-run hiring hall.

Many investors complain they are forced to hire labor through the hiring halls in hard currency which then pay their employees in pesos and in general make managing their labor force more difficult.

Foreign investment has declined in recent years due to tougher U.S. sanctions, according to the government, though no statistics are available.

Western diplomats and businesses also report difficulties repatriating profits due to the country’s cash shortage.

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said in December the government would change the labor practice as part of reforms this year to the foreign investment law. — Reuters

Billionaire Elon Musk has held private discussions with allies about removing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer from his position before the next general election, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

Musk, the world’s richest person and a close ally of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, last month endorsed a German anti-immigration party ahead of elections slated in February, and has repeatedly commented on British politics, demanding Prime Minister Keir Starmer resign.

Musk has been weighing how he and his allies can destabilise the Labour government and has sought information about building support for alternative British political movements to force a change in government, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Musk didn’t immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, outside regular business hours.

“His view is that Western civilization itself is threatened,” one of the people was quoted as telling the FT.

Musk earlier accused Mr. Starmer of what he said was a failure to prosecute gangs of men who raped young girls when he was director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013. Starmer subsequently defended his work as Britain’s top prosecutor.

Separately, Mr. Musk is scheduled to host Alternative for Germany party leader Alice Weidel in a live interview on X on Thursday. The Musk-endorsed German party has been labelled as right-wing extremist by the German security services.

Earlier this week, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere expressed his concern over Musk involving himself in the political issues of countries outside of the United States. — Reuters

TAIPEI/BEIJING — Taiwan and China traded barbs over what the government in Taipei suspects was a Chinese-linked ship’s damage to an undersea communications cable off the island’s coast, an incident that has raised alarm bells on the island.

The ship owner, speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, said there was no evidence the ship was involved. Taiwan’s coast guard suspects the ship damaged the cable off the island’s northern coast late last week, but was unable to board it to investigate due to bad weather.

The coast guard said it “cannot rule out the possibility” the ship, registered both in Cameroon and Tanzania but owned by a Hong Kong company, was engaged in “grey zone” activities. However, it has not provided any direct evidence of this.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has repeatedly complained about “grey zone” Chinese activities around the island, designed to pressure it without direct confrontation, such as balloon overflights and sand dredging.

Late Wednesday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said damage to undersea cables are “common maritime accidents” and Taiwan was making accusations “out of thin air” and intentionally hyping up the “so-called grey zone threat from the mainland”.

Responding to that statement, Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said the case was being investigation and would proceed based on the evidence.

“Internationally, mainland Chinese ships flying flags of convenience have the mark of evil about them,” it said, pointing to investigations in Baltic states about Chinese ships suspected of damaging undersea cables there.

Taiwan has previously experienced damage to cables to the Kinmen and Matsu islands, the council said, referring to territories that sit right next to the Chinese coast but are controlled by Taiwan.

“Of course the government must be cautious in handling this,” it added.

China detests Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, calling him a “separatist” and has rebuffed his repeated calls for talks. Mr. Lai and his government reject Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell to an 11-month low last week, pointing to a stable labor market, though a slowdown in hiring has led some laid-off workers to experience long bouts of joblessness.

Signs of a stead≠ily cooling labor market could allow the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged in January against the backdrop of still high inflation.

The US central bank last month projected a shallower path of rate cuts this year than had been forecast in September, when it launched its policy easing cycle.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Wednesday that he expected further rate cuts, adding that the pace of the reductions “will depend on how much progress we make on inflation, while keeping the labor market from weakening.”

“The Fed says rate cuts from here on out will be gradual,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “Today’s claims data say that they need not be in a rush to ease monetary conditions. Fed policy is aimed at supporting the economy and the job market before a recession shapes up.”

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 201,000 for the week ended Jan. 4, the lowest level since February 2024, the Labor Department said on Wednesday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 218,000 claims for the latest week.

The report was published a day early as federal government offices are closed on Thursday in honor of former President Jimmy Carter who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

Though claims tend to be volatile at the turn of the year, they have bounced around levels associated with low layoffs that are underpinning the labor market and broader economy. The four-week average of claims, which strips out seasonal fluctuations from the data, dropped 10,250 to 213,000 last week.

“The low level of claims is consistent with a labor market that continues to be characterized by a low pace of layoffs,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics. “The initial claims data will be subject to seasonal noise for at least a few more weeks, but we don’t expect claims to fall much below current levels.

Minutes of the Fed’s Dec. 17-18 meeting published on Wednesday showed policymakers viewed labor market conditions as “gradually easing,” and saw “no signs of rapid deterioration.”

They, however, noted “that labor market indicators merited close monitoring.”

STABLE LABOR MARKET
Labor market stability was underscored by government data on Tuesday showing an increase in job openings in November, with 1.13 vacancies for every unemployed person, up from 1.12 in October. Uncertainty over the impact of proposed policies from President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration is also seen causing the Fed to pause rate cuts this month.

Mr. Trump has pledged to cut taxes, impose or massively raise tariffs on imports and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, plans which economists warned would stoke inflation.

Those concerns are weighing on investor sentiment.

US Treasury prices fell, with the yield on the 10-year note rising to the highest level since April. Stocks on Wall Street declined in response, while the dollar gained versus a basket of currencies.

The central bank lowered its benchmark overnight interest rate by 25 basis points to the 4.25%-4.50% range last month.

The Fed, however, projected only two rate cuts this year compared to the four it had forecast in September. The policy rate was hiked by 5.25 percentage points in 2022 and 2023 to tame inflation.

While layoffs have remained low by historical standards, hiring has slowed, with the ADP National Employment on Wednesday showing private payrolls increased by 122,000 jobs in December after rising 146,000 in November. Economists had forecast private employment rising by 140,000.

Sluggish hiring means some out-of-work people are facing long spells of unemployment. The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, increased 33,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.867 million during the week ending Dec. 28, the claims report showed.

Part of the elevation in the so-called continuing claims has been attributed to difficulties stripping out seasonal fluctuations. With the median duration of unemployment nearing a three-year high in November, economists will be hoping for an improvement when the government publishes its closely watched employment report for December on Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 160,000 in December, a Reuters survey showed, as the boost from the end of disruptions from hurricanes and strikes by factory workers at Boeing and another aerospace company faded.

The economy added 227,000 jobs in November. The unemployment rate is forecast to be unchanged at 4.2%.

“A low hiring environment continues to pose upside risk to continuing claims,” said Gisela Hoxha, an economist at Citigroup. — Reuters

BEIJING — China’s consumer prices barely rose in 2024 while factory-gate prices extended into a second straight year of declines, official data showed on Thursday, weighed by persistently weak domestic demand.

A combination of job insecurity, a prolonged housing downturn, debt and tariff threats from the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump has hit demand, even as Beijing ramps up stimulus.

The full-year consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.2%, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed, in line with the previous year’s pace and well below the official target of around 3% for last year, suggesting inflation missed annual targets for the 13th straight year.

In December, the CPI crept up 0.1% year on year, slowing from November’s 0.2% increase and the weakest pace since April. That was in line with forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists.

However, core inflation, which excludes volatile food and fuel prices, nudged up slightly to 0.4% last month from 0.3% in November, the highest in five months.

Upstream, the producer price index fell 2.3% year-on-year in December, slower than the 2.5% fall in November and an expected 2.4% decline. Factory-gate prices have remained deflationary for 27 straight months.

The pickup in core consumer prices and the slower pace of factory deflation suggested “policy stimulus is providing some support to demand and prices,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, Head of China Economics.

“But with the prop from stimulus likely to be short-lived, we think underlying inflation will drop back again later this year.”

In addition to an electric vehicle price war that is entering its third year, discounting is now broadening across the retail sector to include bubble tea shops and other discretionary items.

Cautious consumers are increasingly opting to rent items, such as cameras and handbags, instead of buying them.

“The deflationary pressure is persistent,” said Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.

“The property sector downturn has not ended, which continues to weigh on consumer sentiment,” he said. “The inflation outlook to a large extent depends on the effectiveness of the fiscal policy.”

In late December, the World Bank upgraded its forecast for China’s economic growth in 2024 and 2025 but warned that subdued household and business confidence, along with property sector headwinds, would remain a drag.

China has agreed on a record $411 billion worth of special treasury bond insurance, Reuters reported, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revive a faltering economy.

Beijing will sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds in 2025 to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, the state planner said last week.

Authorities have earmarked $41 billion in funds from government bonds in July to finance equipment upgrades and trade-ins of consumer goods including autos. — Reuters