Business

BEIJING (AP) — China’s leading envoy to trade talks in Washington says the failure to strike a deal in the tariffs war with the U.S. was “just a small setback” and negotiations will continue despite increases in import duties on American imports from China.

In comments to reporters before he left Washington for Beijing on Friday, Vice Premier Liu He said he was cautiously optimistic but that a deal would require the Trump administration to agree to end the punitive tariffs it has imposed on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods.

NEW YORK (AP) — Democrats denounced a plan by President Donald Trump’s personal attorney to push Ukraine to open investigations that he hopes could benefit Trump politically, saying it was an overt attempt to recruit foreign help to influence a U.S. election.

But lawyer Rudy Giuliani has scrapped plans to visit Ukraine, citing concerns about who he would be dealing with there.

BAYPORT, Texas (AP) — A busy commercial waterway near Houston remains partially closed following a collision involving four vessels that caused a toxic gasoline product to leak into the water.

Authorities said at a news conference Saturday that the hull of a 755-foot (230-meter) tanker punctured storage tanks on a tug boat that was pushing two barges along the Houston Ship Channel.

One barge capsized Friday. The other was damaged.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Thousands of Polish nationalists marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw Saturday, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust.

BANGKOK, May 11. /TASS/: Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service Rosstat has presented a project on keeping statistical accounting at a seminar of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, head of the Russian delegation, Deputy Head of Rosstat Sergey Egorenko told TASS on Friday, adding that the initiative would help raise the research potential of countries for forming a larger number of sustainable development indicators.

MINSK, May 11. /TASS/: Minsk has no intention to take advantage of oil pollution incident and link it to the situation surrounding Russia’s tax maneuver, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.

"It has nothing to do with the tax maneuver," he said, as cited by the BelTA news agency. "An incident occurred. Was it done deliberately and on purpose? Let them [Russians] sort things out for themselves. I am told that our oil refineries are getting clean oil, a portion of the polluted oil was pumped into our storage facilities," Lukashenko added.

BELGRADE, May 11. /TASS/: Serbia is one of Russia’s key partners in Europe and in the world, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council's (upper house of parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev stated on Saturday in an interview with Serbia’s RTS channel.

XIAN /China/, May 11. /TASS/: Russia has become one of the chief guests of the Fourth Silk Road International EXPO that kicked off in the Chinese city of Xian on Saturday. This year, Russia’s regions of the Urals Federal District are showcasing their trade, economic, investment, educational and scientific capacities at the event.

TASS, May 11: The Altai rescue vessel, an Ilyushin Il-38 aircraft and a Kamov Ka-27PS helicopter from Russia’s Northern Fleet will participate in a joint Russia-Norway maritime rescue exercise scheduled to take place in the Barents Sea on May 28-29, the Fleet’s press service said in a statement on Saturday.

WASHINGTON, May 11. /TASS/: The United States has decided to move a Patriot long-range all-weather air defense system battery and USS Arlington to the United States’ Central Command (CENTCOM) zone of authority, which primarily contains the Middle East and Central Asia, the Pentagon’s press service said in a statement on Friday.

"The Acting Secretary of Defense (Patrick Shanahan) has approved the movement of USS Arlington (LPD-24) and a Patriot battery to US Central Command (CENTCOM) as part of the command’s original request for forces from earlier this week," the statement said.