Beijing is planning to revise its rules controlling global access to battery manufacturing technologies in a tit-for-tat move after major Western economies including the European Union and the United States decided to impose punitive tariffs on China-made electric vehicles. Chinese companies would have to obtain a government permit to export technologies used to produce lithium-phosphate-iron (LFP) cathode materials, a key component in iron-based, affordable lithium-ion batteries, according to an annual export control catalogue updated by the Ministry of Commcerce on Jan. 2. The Chinese government is also looking to place new constraints on local companies’ ability to sell technologies used in extracting lithium from hard rock spodumene ore. The proposed measures are open to public review until Feb. 1. [South China Morning Post]
The UN says more than 5,600 people were killed in Haiti last year as gangs rampage– abcnews.go.com
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — More than 5,600 people were reported killed in Haiti last year as a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenya struggles to contain rampant gang violence, officials said Tuesday.
The number of killings increased by more than 20% compared with all of 2023, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. In addition, more than 2,200 people were reported injured and nearly 1,500 kidnapped, it said.
“These figures alone cannot capture the absolute horrors being perpetrated in Haiti, but they show the unremitting violence to which people are being subjected,” Volker Türk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.
Among the victims are two journalists and a police officer killed when gunmen opened fire on a crowd that gathered on Christmas Eve for the much-anticipated reopening of Haiti’s biggest public hospital, which gangs forced closed earlier this year.