Beijing 2022 Eases COVID Curbs for Games; China Warns on Pollution

BEIJING — 

Organizers of next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics slightly eased the strict COVID-19 requirements for participants, a move that means fewer athletes are likely to be tripped up by positive tests, although authorities also warned about seasonal air pollution.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the changes on Monday, which included easing the threshold for being designated positive for COVID-19 from PCR tests and reducing to seven days from 14 days the period for which a person is deemed a close contact.

The changes, which take effect immediately and apply retrospectively, “have been developed in order to further adapt to the reality of the current environment and support the Games participants”, the IOC said in a statement.

The slight relaxing of rules for Games participants comes despite China’s scramble to contain local flare-ups of COVID-19, including in Beijing, with four more Chinese provinces finding infections linked to the Beijing cluster amid the Lunar New Year travel season.

Organizers also began reporting data on positive COVID-19 tests among Games-related personnel, with 177 confirmed cases found among 3,115 international arrivals from Jan. 4 to Jan. 23, just one of which was among an athlete or support staffer, according to Beijing 2022 data released Sunday and Monday.

China’s strict COVID-19 protocols have led some team officials to express fear of athletes, including those who have recovered from coronavirus, being blocked from participating.

The changes mean that now only participants whose PCR results show a Cycle Threshold (CT) of less than 35 will be considered positive. Previously, the more sensitive CT of 40 was the threshold for designating those positive, the Games’ medical chief, Brian McCloskey, said on Sunday.

The Games are set to take place from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20 inside a “closed loop” bubble separating all personnel from the public amid what is effectively a zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy in China that has led it to all but shut its border to international arrivals.

Final preparations are taking place amid the global surge in the highly infectious Omicron coronavirus variant. Organizers said last week that tickets would not be sold to the public.

Smog warning

Meanwhile, the Chinese capital’s notorious smog, which has drastically improved in recent years, emerged as a potential Games irritant on Monday when China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment warned that winter weather was “very unfavorable” for efforts to keep the air clean.

Beijing has been enveloped for days in thick smog, with concentrations of hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 at 205 micrograms per cubic meter on Monday morning. The World Health Organization recommends levels of no more than 5.

Since China won the bid for the Winter Olympics in 2015, authorities have raised vehicle fuel standards, shut polluting firms and cut coal consumption in a bid to make the Games “green.”

Authorities will take action against polluters in Beijing and neighboring Hebei province if there are warnings of heavy pollution during the Olympics to ensure that they will be held in a “good environment”, environment ministry spokesman Liu Youbin said on Monday.

In addition to COVID-19 and pollution, preparations for the Games have been clouded by a diplomatic boycott by countries including the United States over China’s human rights record. China says that betrays Olympic principles and denies rights abuses.

Iran, US Lock Horns Over Sanctions Relief, Nuclear Curbs in Vienna Talks

DUBAI — 

Iran and the United States are displaying little flexibility on core issues in indirect nuclear talks, raising questions about whether a compromise can be found soon to renew a 2015 deal that could dispel fears of a wider Middle East war, diplomats say.

After eight rounds of talks, the thorniest points remain the speed and scope of lifting sanctions on Tehran — including Iran’s demand for a U.S. guarantee of no further punitive steps — and how and when to restore curbs on Iran’s atomic work.

The nuclear deal limited Iran’s uranium enrichment activity to make it harder for it to develop nuclear arms — an ambition Tehran denies — in return for lifting international sanctions.

But former U.S. President Donald Trump ditched the pact in 2018, saying it did not do enough to curb Iran’s nuclear activities, ballistic missile program and regional influence, and reimposed sanctions that badly damaged Iran’s economy.

FILE – This file photo released Nov. 5, 2019, by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, shows centrifuge machines in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

After waiting for a year, Iran responded to Trump’s pressure by gradually breaching the accord, including rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.

Following months of stop-start talks that began after Joe Biden replaced Trump in the White House, Western officials now say time is running out to resurrect the pact. But Iranian officials deny they are under time pressure, arguing the economy can survive thanks to oil sales to China.

‘We need guarantees’

A former Iranian official said Iran’s rulers “are certain that their uncompromising, maximalist approach will give results.”

France said on Tuesday that despite some progress at the end of December, Iran and world powers were still far away from reviving the deal.

The U.S. State Department said on January 4 the issues “at the heart of the negotiations” were sanctions relief and the nuclear steps that Iran would take to return the accord.

Iran insists on immediate removal of all Trump-era sanctions in a verifiable process. Washington has said it would remove curbs inconsistent with the 2015 pact if Iran resumed compliance with the deal, implying it would leave in place others such as those imposed under terrorism or human rights measures.

“Americans should give assurances that no new sanctions under any label would be imposed on Iran in future. We need guarantees that America will not abandon the deal again,” said a senior Iranian official.

Iran’s Nournews, a media outlet affiliated to the Supreme National Security Council, reported on Wednesday that Iran’s key conditions at the talks “are assurances and verifications.”

U.S. officials were not immediately available to comment on the question of guarantees. However, U.S. officials have said Biden cannot promise the U.S. government will not renege on the agreement because the nuclear deal is a non-binding political understanding, not a legally-binding treaty.

FILE – People walk past Palais Coburg, where closed-door nuclear talks take place in Vienna, Austria, Dec. 17, 2021.

Asked to comment on that U.S. constitutional reality, an Iranian official said: “It’s their internal problem.”

On the issue of obtaining verification that sanctions have been removed — at which point Iran would have to revive curbs on its nuclear program — the senior Iranian official said Iran and Washington differed over the timetable.

“Iran needs a couple of weeks to verify sanctions removal (before it reverses its nuclear steps). But the other party says a few days would be enough to load oil on a ship, export it and transfer its money through banking system,” the official said.

Threats

Shadowing the background of the talks have been threats by Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear weaponry but which sees Iran as a existential threat, to attack Iranian nuclear installations if it deems diplomacy ultimately futile in containing Tehran’s atomic abilities and potential.

Iran says it would hit back hard if it were attacked.

A Western diplomat said “early-February is a realistic end-date for Vienna talks” as the longer Iran remains outside the deal, the more nuclear expertise it will gain, shortening the time it might need to race to build a bomb if it chose to.

“Still we are not sure whether Iran really wants a deal,” said another Western diplomat.

Iran has ruled out adhering to any “artificial” deadline.

“Several times, they asked Iran to slow down its nuclear work during the talks, and even Americans conveyed messages about an interim deal through other parties,” said a second Iranian official, close to Iran’s negotiating team.

“It was rejected by Iran.”

Asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson who declined to be identified told Reuters: “Of course we — and the whole international community — want Iran to slow down their nuclear program and have communicated that very clearly.”

“Beyond that, we don’t negotiate the details in public, but these reports are far off.”

Other points of contention include Iran’s advanced nuclear centrifuges — machines that purify uranium for use as fuel in atomic power plants or, if purified to a high level, weapons.

“Discussions continue on Iran’s demand to store and seal its advanced centrifuges. … They wanted those centrifuges to be dismantled and shipped abroad,” the first official said.

Asked to comment on this question, a Western diplomat said: “We are looking for ways to overcome our differences with Iran about verification process.”