Science & Technology

CANBERRA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has chosen northern Australia for its first-ever launch from a privately-owned site.

The U.S. space agency on Friday night announced it will work with the Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) to launch four rockets from the Arnhem Space Center in Northern Territory, 700 km east of Darwin, in 2020.

BEIJING, June 2 (Xinhua) -- China and the US are each other's largest trading partner and important source of investment, and their commercial cooperation has brought substantial benefits to both countries and both peoples, according to a white paper titled China's Position on the China-US Economic and Trade Consultations released by the State Council Information Office on Sunday.

In 2018, bilateral trade in goods and services exceeded US$750 billion, and two-way direct investment approached US$160 billion, the white paper said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite pushback from U.S. business, Mexico and Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump is doubling down on his threat to slap a 5% tariff on Mexican imports unless America’s southern neighbor cracks down on Central American migrants trying to cross the U.S. border.

U.S. manufacturers said the tariff, set to take effect June 10, would have devastating consequences on them and American consumers. U.S. stocks tumbled on Wall Street in response to Trump’s planned action.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The momentum that supporters have tried to build for a new North American trade deal has run into some Trump turbulence.

The Trump administration had taken steps in recent weeks to work with Democratic and Republican lawmakers to address concerns about the proposed United States-Mexico-Canada agreement.

Then President Donald Trump made his threat this past week of a 5% tariff on Mexican imports unless America’s southern neighbor cracked down on Central American migrants trying to cross the U.S. border.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Google, the tech giant known universally for its search engine, also has fingers in a number of other pies, like online advertising, email messaging and video. That gives U.S. antitrust enforcers, who have reportedly evinced a new interest in pursuing competition charges against Google, lots to look at.

BEIJING (AP) — China issued a report Sunday blaming the United States for a trade dispute and said it won’t back down on “major issues of principle.”

The statement from the Cabinet spokesman’s office said that China has kept its word throughout 11 rounds of talks and will honor its commitments if a trade agreement is reached.

“A country’s sovereignty and dignity must be respected, and any agreement reached by the two sides must be based on equality and mutual benefit,” it said.

SYDNEY, June 1 (Xinhua) -- High temperatures and lack of rainfall helped kill off a record number of critically endangered sawfish in a parched creek in Western Australia state, according to the latest research.

More than 40 of the fish, with their distinctive flat nose extension and sharp traverse teeth, died on a dried-out area in the Kimberley region late last year, local media reported on Saturday.

A team of researchers, who have just confirmed the latest deaths, tried to save the fish but only two of the victims survived, according to the ABC news channel.

CAIRO, May 31 (Xinhua) -- The United States has initiated a trade conflict against China "unilaterally," a move that is "an assault on the international values," former Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Washington stood against the general world system and tore up hopes of free trade and a growing economy, said Sharaf, who is also a committee member of the Silk Road NGO Cooperation Network.

SANYA, June 1. /TASS/: China intends to launch four remote Earth-observation satellites Hainan-1 by the end of 2019, according to Yang TianLiang, Director of Sanya Institute of Remote Sensing in Hainan under China’s Academy of Sciences. 

"At the end of 2019 we will launch four optical Hainan-1 satellites of the first series," the Hainan Daily newspaper reports. "By 2022, our institute plans to launch six more satellites of high spectral resolution Sanya-1 and synthetic aperture radar satellites Sansha-1," Yang said.

Wall Street is no fan of Tariff Man.

The stock market stumbled Friday to its first losing month of 2019 in May, primarily due to President Donald Trump’s decision to broadly wield his tariff powers, first against China over trade and then against Mexico over immigration.