Women meet to talk about life in Rio Cali - Cali - Colombia

The Cali River needs healing and a group of women from various groups that defend gender equality will meet tomorrow to say: “Women weave our territory. We are rivers, we are basin”.

This is the message given by Nancy Faride Arias, Virginia Casasfranco, Dora Chamorro and Liliana Pardo, as well as other members of the Women’s Social Movement.

“We women say it is necessary to turn the map of the city and look at it from west to east, from where the rivers are born in the Farallones to the Cauca River, where they flow,” says Arias.

(Also read: A woman was injured with a machete in her arms for robbing her in the Valley)

“We say what challenges us and moves us to meet around the basins, because the basins are comprehensive, nurturing, inclusive,” adds the activist.

“The waters contain what is seen and what is not seen: surface water or rivers and also groundwater, the soil that generates food, evaporated water, the water that makes up 80 percent of our bodies, trees that give shade and protect the rivers, the stones that slow down the passage of water and allow more life to be found in the rivers”.

For this reason, this Sunday the first meeting of rural and urban women’s organizations from the water territories and the feminist and sexual diversity gathering will take place to talk about their daily lives, their adversities, how they live with the pandemic and exclusion. The appointment will be in the central park Río Cali, from 9 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon. There will be Norma Bermúdez, and Adalgiza Charria.

(Also: Emergency due to floods in the south and southeast of Cali)

“The same basin has been cared for by the women of the townships, who, just as women give life and should not be victims of death, comments Liliana Pardo.

Although the Gender Observatory of the Government of the Valley (Ogen), reported 17 femicides between January 1 and December 31, 2021 with a reduction of 45 percent compared to 2020, the call of the groups against no More deaths or violence.

‘Violet Cali’ and ‘Vibra mujer’

Casa Matria, supported by the Mayor’s Office, also has programming for women this Sunday and on Monday with ‘Cali is painted purple’. On Sunday there will be a bicycle ride in the Jairo Varela square.

(You may be interested in: Cloromiro, the savior of the child who fell into the Cauca River with his mother)

Until this Sunday, the ‘Vibra Mujer Fair’ will be held at the La Estación shopping center, a space dedicated to the visibility and empowerment of businesswomen and entrepreneurs from Cali.

CALI

US, Japan, South Korea Meet in Hawaii to Discuss North Korea

HONOLULU — 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts were meeting Saturday in Hawaii to discuss the threat posed by nuclear-armed North Korea after Pyongyang began the year with a series of missile tests.

Blinken gathered in Honolulu with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong. Defense chiefs from the three countries last week said North Korea’s recent missile tests were destabilizing to regional security.

Some experts say North Korea is using the weapons tests to put pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration to resume long-stalled nuclear negotiations as the pandemic puts further strain on a North Korean economy battered by decades of mismanagement and crippling U.S.-led sanctions.

Biden’s administration has offered North Korea open-ended talks but has shown no willingness to ease the sanctions without meaningful cuts to the country’s nuclear program.

The tests also have a technical component, allowing North Korea to hone its weapons arsenal. One of the missiles recently tested — the Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile — is capable of reaching the U.S. territory of Guam. It was the longest-distance weapon the North has tested since 2017.

North Korea appears to be pausing its tests during the Winter Olympics in China, its most important ally and economic lifeline. But analysts believe North Korea will dramatically increase its weapons testing after the Olympics.

The recent tests have rattled Pyongyang’s neighbors in South Korea and Japan. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who helped set up the historic talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and former President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, said last month that the tests were a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and urged the North to cease “actions that create tensions and pressure.”

The Security Council initially imposed sanctions on North Korea after its first nuclear test in 2006. It made them tougher in response to further nuclear tests and the country’s increasingly sophisticated nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

China and Russia, citing the North’s economic difficulties, have called for lifting sanctions like those banning seafood exports and prohibitions on its citizens working overseas and sending home their earnings.

Blinken arrived in Hawaii from Fiji, where he met with Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and other Pacific leaders to talk about regional issues, especially the existential risk posed by climate change. It was the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to Fiji since 1985.

He started his Pacific tour in Australia, where he met his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan. The four nations form the Quad, a bloc of Indo-Pacific democracies that was created to counter China’s regional influence.

US Trade Official Says China Failed to Meet Phase 1 Commitments

WASHINGTON — 

China has failed to meet its commitments under a two-year Phase 1 trade deal that expired at the end of 2021, and discussions are continuing with Beijing on the matter, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi said on Tuesday.

“You know, it is really clear that the Chinese haven’t met their commitment in Phase 1. That’s something we’re trying to address,” Bianchi told a virtual forum hosted by the Washington International Trade Association.

In the deal signed by former President Donald Trump in January 2020, China pledged to increase purchases of U.S. farm and manufactured goods, energy and services by $200 billion above 2017 levels during 2020 and 2021.

Through November, China had met only about 60% of that goal, according to trade data compiled by Peterson Institute for International Economics senior fellow Chad Bown.

The deal prevented the escalation of a nearly three-year trade war between the world’s two largest economies but left in place tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of imports on both sides of the Pacific.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in late January told lawmakers that China’s purchases of U.S. farm goods fell short of the Phase 1 goal by about $13 billion.

The U.S. Census bureau is expected to release final 2021 trade data for goods and services on February 8, which will provide specifics on the shortfall.

Chinese customs data showed the country’s 2021 trade surplus with the United States surged 25% to $396.6 billion after declining for two straight years, with exports to the United States up 27% and imports of American goods rising 33%.

A spokesperson for China’s Embassy in Washington said Beijing has worked to implement the Phase 1 agreement “despite the impact of COVID-19, global recession and supply chain disruptions.”

“We hope the U.S. can create a sound atmosphere and conditions for expanded trade with China. The two trade teams are in normal communication,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Bianchi, whose portfolio includes China and Asian trade matters, did not identify steps the Biden administration is taking to hold China to its Phase 1 commitments, which also include some increased Chinese market access for U.S. agriculture, biotechnology and financial services.

“It’s not our goal to escalate here. But certainly, we’re looking at all the tools we have in our toolbox to make sure they’re held accountable,” Bianchi said, without providing details.

Bianchi, who served as an economic adviser in the Obama administration and took office in October, said the United States was trying to foster a “stable relationship” with China, but the two countries are at a “difficult stage in the relationship.”

“To be super-candid, the conversations are not easy. They’re very difficult. But you know, from my perspective, what’s important is that we’re having conversations and they will be unflinchingly honest,” Bianchi said.

She said USTR was emphasizing that China’s state aid to companies and non-market economic policies and practices are a “serious threat to American economic interests.”

Bianchi said USTR was consulting closely with Congress on the Biden administration’s planned Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to re-engage economically with the rest of Asia, and more details would be released in coming weeks.

The framework will not include improved market access for countries that sign up, Bianchi said, but said the United States will be seeking high standard “binding commitments” from trading partners in negotiations on digital trade policies, labor rules, environmental standards and supply chain resilience.