China says US tariff threat

runs against trend of the times

BEIJING (AP) — China’s foreign minister said Thursday that U.S. threats to hike tariffs run against the trend toward globalization and will hurt U.S. businesses and consumers.

“Well, I should point out that nowadays we live in a globalized world,” Wang Yi said while attending a regional meeting in Singapore. “We’re not doing 19th century trade,” he said.

“Goods flow from one country to another along the globalized industrial value chains,” he said. “So is the United States trying to put tariffs on its own companies?”

China and the U.S. have raised tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s goods over complaints Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.

Wang’s comments came after the U.S. Trade Representative announced Wednesday it was considering raising import duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods by 25 percent instead of the previously planned 10 percent.

Tokyo medical school said

to alter tests to keep out women

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese medical university has systematically discriminated against female applicants because women tend to quit as doctors after starting families, causing hospital staffing shortages, media reports said Thursday.

The Yomiuri newspaper said Tokyo Medical University has manipulated the entrance exam results of women since about 2011 to keep the female student population low. Quoting unidentified sources, it said the manipulation started after the share of successful female applicants reached 38 percent of the total in 2010.

Other Japanese media, including NHK public television and Kyodo News, also reported the exam manipulation. Quoting unnamed sources, NHK said female applicants’ scores were slashed by about 10 percent in some years.