The Joint Maritime Information Center for the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden (JMIC) said Tuesday that the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Chios Lion was attacked by Yemen's Houthis in the Red Sea, and that it was assessing the damage and investigating a potential oil spill.

An unmanned vessel caused minor damage to the Chios Lion's port side on Monday, after the Houthis launched multiple attacks on the ship and another vessel sailing in waters about 100 nautical miles northwest of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah.

“After the attack, the vessel was heading south, but reversed course and headed north away from the threat area to further assess the damage and investigate a potential oil spill,” the Joint Military Impact Assessment Center said in a statement.

The captain and crew were safe, the report said.

Chios Lion's manager did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Yemen's Houthis said they attacked the Chios Lion and Bentley I using ballistic missiles, drones and bomb-laden speedboats in retaliation for a deadly Israeli airstrike on the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis on Saturday.

Houthi attacks have taken an economic toll on global trade since last November, forcing shipowners to abandon the Suez Canal shortcut in favor of the longer, more expensive African bypass route.

Spilled cargoes such as oil and fertilizer, as well as ship fuel, also pose an environmental threat.

The China-Laos Railway has transported more than 100,000 tons of fruit this year, up about 120 percent from a year earlier, the Kunming branch of China Railway Corp. said.

On Thursday, 108 tons of durian from Thailand transported by this railroad were unloaded at Hongyun International Logistics Port in Kunming city. It took only 29 hours to deliver this consignment from Vientiane South Railway Station to the unloading site in Kunming, Yunnan Province, Kunming Branch of the corporation said.

Thanks to simplified customs clearance procedures, tropical fruits from South and Southeast Asia are constantly shipped to China by this railroad. The time to pass through customs control on the railroad has been reduced to five hours, facilitating the transportation of fruits and vegetables, flowers and other goods requiring rapid transit, said the Kunming Branch of the corporation.

The railroad, which started operation in December 2021, is a landmark project under the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road. It is 1,035 kilometers long and connects the administrative center of Yunnan Province, Kunming, with Wien. Kunming to Vientiane in Laos.

China and Tajikistan will jointly build a multimodal transportation corridor that will link China and Turkey through the countries of the region. This is reported in a joint statement of the two countries released on Friday.

According to the joint statement, the multimodal transportation corridor will link China and Turkey through regional countries including Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran.

The document points out that cooperation between China and Tajikistan in logistics has yielded results, and emphasizes the importance of strengthening regional transport infrastructure interconnectivity under the Belt and Road Initiative.

According to the statement, the two sides expressed their willingness to further deepen cooperation in China-Europe freight trains. In addition, the two sides attach great importance to the construction of a transport corridor linking China, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and will gradually carry out the modernization of the China-Tajikistan-Uzbekistan highway, making full use of the potential of the Kulyab logistics center in Tajikistan.

The joint statement was issued during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Tajikistan at the invitation of Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon.

China's international trade in goods and services reached nearly 4.06 trillion yuan in value terms in May 2024, up 7 percent year-on-year, official data released on Friday showed.

In dollar terms, the value of exports and imports of goods and services in the country's international trade totaled $302.5 billion. The value of exports and imports of goods and services in the country's international trade amounted to $302.5 billion and $268.9 billion. The value of exports and imports of goods and services amounted to US$302.5 billion and US$268.9 billion, respectively, recording a surplus of US$33.6 billion. China's international trade amounted to US$302.5 billion, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange Control of the People's Republic of China said.

Among them, China's merchandise exports reached 1.95 trillion yuan in May, while imports reached 1.56 trillion yuan. The surplus reached 391.4 billion yuan.

Last month, China exported 202.4 billion yuan worth of services and imported 355.1 billion yuan worth of services. At the same time, the passive balance amounted to 152.7 billion yuan.

Tourism took the largest share in the country's services trade during the reporting period, with the country's imports and exports of tourism services totaling 159.7 billion yuan, followed by transportation and other commercial services, the ministry said.

The acute shortage of 40ft high-cube containers has been hampering the shipment of export cargo from Bangladesh, with MSC and Hapag Lloyd among the major liner operators trying to reposition equipment from nearby ports.

The situation has been exacerbated by the congestion at Singapore, where hundreds of Bangladesh-bound containers are stranded, due to berthing delays, stakeholders claimed.

Also, a significant numbers of 40ft containers are stuck at Chittagong port, as importers are not collecting their boxes because of the Eid holidays.

Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary general of the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association, said the depots had experienced carrier-wide shortages of 40ft boxes.