China to Host Afghanistan's Neighbors to Review Post-Taliban Situation

Islamabad — 

Pakistan said Friday foreign ministers of six immediate neighbors of Afghanistan will gather in China next month to discuss economic and humanitarian upheavals facing the Taliban-ruled, conflict-torn country.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad that his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, will also attend the Beijing-hosted two-day meeting starting March 30.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi gestures while addressing the members of the media in Islamabad, Feb. 25, 2022.

Qureshi said the discussions would focus on ways to protect the Afghan people from the humanitarian crisis and prevent an economic meltdown in Afghanistan.

“If there is, God forbid, an economic meltdown (in Afghanistan), its repercussions will hit not only Pakistan but other neighboring countries and the region at large,” Qureshi cautioned.

The gathering in China will be the third such dialogue among Afghanistan’s neighbors, including China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, since the Taliban takeover of the country in August.

Islamabad initiated and hosted the inaugural session of the process in September after the Taliban militarily seized power from the now-defunct Western-backed Afghan government and U.S.-led international forces withdrew from the country.

Tehran hosted the second foreign ministers’ meeting in late October.

Trilateral on sideline

A senior Pakistani Foreign Ministry official told VOA that Taliban leaders will be invited to the two-day discussions in China to allow them to directly share their assessment of the latest Afghan situation.

The official, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media, said a trilateral dialogue involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and China will also be held on the sidelines of the meeting.

He said Chinese and Pakistani officials are expected to discuss and propose economic connectivity projects to Taliban delegates under an ongoing mega-infrastructure development program China is funding in Pakistan. The official did not share further details.

FILE – Passengers ride in a newly built Orange Line Metro Train, a metro project planned under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a day after an official opening in the eastern city of Lahore, Oct. 26, 2020.

The program, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is hailed as a flagship of Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative. It has built roads, power plants and other infrastructure projects in Pakistan with Chinese investments over the past seven years.

“The two sides are ready to discuss with Afghanistan the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan,” read a joint statement issued at the end of wide-ranging bilateral talks President Xi Jinping hosted with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing earlier this month.

Taliban legitimacy

When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan six months ago, wide-ranging international sanctions dating back to the Islamist group’s first time in power from 1996 to 2001 followed.

Washington and other Western nations also suspended financial aid to Kabul and immediately froze billions of dollars in the Afghan central bank’s assets, mostly held in the U.S.

The restrictions have pushed the country’s heavily aid-dependent economy to the brink of collapse, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where the United Nations estimates around 23 million people, or 55 percent of the population, face acute hunger.

FILE – Afghan men stand in a queue for a program offered by Afghanistan’s Taliban government to tackle hunger, offering thousands of people wheat in exchange for labor, in Dasht-e-Padula of southern Kabul, Oct. 24, 2021.

Foreign countries, including immediate neighbors, have not recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan.

The global community wants the hardline group to govern Afghanistan through a broad-based ruling system that represents all Afghan ethnicities, respects human rights, including women’s rights to education and work, and disallows terrorists from using the country for cross-border attacks.

Taliban leaders dismiss criticism of their government, saying it is representative of all Afghans, and women are being given access to education as well as work in accordance with Islamic Sharia law. They also claim no terrorist groups are being allowed to use the country for international attacks, assertions disputed by foreign officials and independent critics.

The Taliban under the previous government had banned females from education and work and harbored the al-Qaida terrorist network blamed for orchestrating the September 2001 attacks on the United States.

EU, UN Host Summit on Cleaning, Protecting the World’s Oceans

World leaders met Friday in the French northwest coastal city of Brest for a three-day summit aimed at taking action to clean and protect the earth’s oceans.

The One Ocean Summit is being hosted by France, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union Council, along with the United Nations. The goal of the meetings is to raise awareness on issues such as pollution and over-fishing and get international commitments to address and reverse the situation.

French President Emmanuel Macron opened the summit with a call for such commitments “and useful actions, in hopes of setting “an international agenda for 2022.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke soon after, citing threats to the ocean and called for the adoption of an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean’s biodiversity. She said she was confident it could be adopted this year.

Von der Leyen cited a treaty signed in 2016 by the U.S., China, Russia, the EU and others, to protect the Ross Sea in Antarctica. She said, “They overcame their differences to protect this rich ecosystem. We can do it again.”

The treaty is being driven by the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, ((HAC)) an intergovernmental group of at least 70 countries co-chaired by Costa Rica and France and by the United Kingdom, aiming to get at least 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans protected by 2030.

U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry spoke at the summit and called out illegal fishing operations that use drag nets that destroy habitat and deplete the world’s fish stocks. Kerry said illegal activity accounts for one-fifth of all the world’s fishing.

On the sidelines of the summit, the United States and France issued a joint statement to announce they are launching negotiations on a global agreement to reduce plastic waste in the world’s oceans. They expect the negotiations to begin at the 5th U.N. Environment Assembly (UNEA) to be held in Nairobi later this month.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

China Suffers Few Obvious Losses as Host Country During COVID

Two-time Paralympic athlete Tyler Carter hopes to reach Beijing on February 25 despite an extra steep hill of obstacles. The 28-year-old alpine skier vying for a spot on the U.S. team is resolved to face a “slew” of anti-pandemic restrictions without blaming anyone.

“It’s just kind of the reality that we’re in, and all reports I’ve had is that China has been doing a great job of keeping everyone safe, making sure appropriate measures are taken,” Carter told VOA from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he is based.

Carter says he’s OK with the pre-departure virus tests and more on arrival in Beijing’s Yanqing District. He’s prepared to step into the new sports center sight unseen — except on TV during the Games happening now. He practices daily, either in a gym or in the snow. Carter’s foot was amputated when he was a year old.

Athletes already at the Games have just gone through what Carter is about to experience on his journey to Beijing. China’s zero-COVID policy for the Winter Olympics is challenging athletes worldwide, but overall, shows signs of outward success for the host country, analysts believe.

Beijing kicked off the 2022 Olympics on Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping pledging that China would “do its best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid” event.

About 3,000 athletes and their delegations are competing at venues in or near Beijing.

Athletes, journalists and related staff must operate in safety bubbles where they are in contact only with one another. Police and guards open and close the gates for buses and other approved vehicles approaching the fence-ringed Olympic hotels.

A security guard opens a gate to let in a bus inside the Olympic “closed-loop” in Beijing, China, Feb. 7, 2022.

Those who are staying inside the bubble must test for the virus daily and live in an environment with climate-controlled sleeping pods, dedicated airport-to-venue buses and robots, not humans, who make them food and cocktails.

Additional pressure

Athletes would feel more energized if they could go to Beijing’s bars and mix with locals after their events, said Mark Thomas, managing director of U.K.-based, China event-focused S2M Group sports consultancy. Athletes and analysts have also said it would feel different if the competitors were performing in arenas packed with cheering fans.

Unlike pre-COVID Games, athletes this time have few opportunities to preview their courses or practice in the host city before competing. Additionally, athletes can be barred from events if they test positive for COVID-19, so even leading up to the Olympics, many athletes put themselves in self-imposed lockdowns and adapted their training to ensure they would test negative in order to participate in the Games.

FILE – An attendant pours coffee as a robot makes a fresh pot in a waiting area within the closed-loop “bubble” at the Taizicheng train station in Zhangjakou on Jan. 29, 2022, ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

“It’s probably going to make all the people participating in elite sports rustier, which isn’t good, and particularly in sports that are quite dangerous like bobsled, luge and downhill skiing, that’s a risk,” said Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“I think it would be wrong to say this Games is not affecting athlete performance and athlete mood,” Thomas said, “but on the other hand I think there’s a general stoicism within the sporting community that there is a still a privilege to compete and be part and have the ability to be actually doing what you enjoy and competing at the top levels,” he added.

“Can you imagine the experience it would be for an athlete?” said John Swartzberg, a clinical professor emeritus from the University of California, Berkeley.

FILE – A man stands guard an exit within the closed-loop “bubble” at the Taizicheng train station, in Zhangjakou on Jan. 29, 2022, ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

“You’re going to essentially be flown around the globe to get there and having very minimal interaction with others and certainly no interaction with the outside world and then flown out of there,” Swartzberg said. “And if you become sick or if you test positive, you’re put into isolation, and you may miss your event.”

China’s strategy is all but sure to squelch any spread of COVID-19 by plugging as many transmission channels as possible, Swartzberg said.

Us-vs-them mentality

China, where COVID-19 was first reported, is keen to stop any cross-contamination between Olympians and its general public after several outbreak clusters and lockdowns in January.

The anti-pandemic restrictions play into many Chinese people’s sense of their country as a disease-free one versus the outside world where multiple countries are fighting the omicron variant, said Scott Harold, a Washington-based senior political scientist with the Rand Corp. research group.

Barriers between athletes and the public reinforce Xi’s ideal for making his country more “autarchic,” Harold said.

“One of the things that China’s leadership have done through COVID has really been to reinforce a message that has long been present in China’s political propaganda and political messaging, and that is the notion that the outside world is threatening, the outside world is unfairly maligning China, and the outside world is not as pure or as good as China is,” he said.

China upbeat

Normally an Olympics host uses the Games to showcase its venue cities and local culture to the world. China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism is planning a post-Olympics integration of sports, cultural and tourist industries in Beijing and co-host city Zhangjiakou to the northwest, the official news agency Xinhua reports.

But the Chinese public’s fervor for their 176 athletes is coming on strong through TV viewership and social media activity, said Thomas, whose firm has organized sporting events in China. Olympics imagery quickly replaced Lunar New Year greetings this week on China’s ubiquitous WeChat messaging service.

FILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, at National Stadium, in Beijing, China, Feb. 4, 2022.

In Xi’s remarks at the opening banquet, he said Bejing is “committed to organizing a green, inclusive, open and clean Games, China has made every effort to counter the impact of COVID-19, earnestly fulfilled its solemn pledge to the international community, and ensured the smooth opening of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games as scheduled.”

Carter, the alpine skier, remains upbeat about the possibility of competing in Beijing.

“It’s the only way to make this work, is to keep us in a bubble,” he said.

Chinese Americans Support Olympic Athletes, Not Necessarily Host Country

SAN FRANCISCO — 

Anthony Shiu was born in San Francisco. His father’s parents are from China. Several generations may separate him from China, but the 60-year-old transit mechanic spends his free time as an activist against anti-Asian hate crimes and helping to run a lion dance troupe. Lion dances are a facet of traditional Chinese culture.

In that spirit, he backs Beijing as the 2022 Winter Olympics host city despite a litany of Sino-U.S. political issues that culminated last month in Washington’s decision to boycott the Games diplomatically. He plans to watch the world sporting event on TV if time allows.

“To me, Beijing is just a hosting country, and the committee said, ‘We’re going to hold it here,’ so where they hold it is not important to me,” Shiu told VOA during an interview in Portsmouth Square park at the core of San Francisco’s historic Chinatown.

Shiu’s ideas about the Beijing Winter Olympics reflect those of many fellow Chinese Americans: China has the right to hold the Olympics despite Western condemnations of the country over human rights problems. Still, there’s a faction that would prefer Beijing not host the Games.

“It’s a sport,” said 38-year-old Vincent Fung, a Chinese American operator of the Buddha Exquisite Corp. paper goods store in Chinatown. “People should respect (that), it doesn’t matter what race. That’s what the Olympics stands for. So, if you’re boycotting things, that defeats the purpose of having the game. That’s my view on it.”

Chinese American Sherwin Won, 69, a retired university clinical lab scientist from San Francisco, skis and plans to watch the Olympics. He even hopes to visit Beijing someday, post-COVID-19. “The team members have nothing to do with China,” Won said of participating foreign athletes. “It’s their sports.”

Human rights groups gather to call for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022, in Taipei, Jan. 26, 2022.

Tension over Taiwan, Hong Kong, Uyghurs

Supporters of diplomatic boycotts in multiple Western countries have called out Beijing over perceived strong-arm tactics toward Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Critics, including politicians in the U.S., EU and human rights organizations, also find fault with China for its treatment of the largely Muslim Uyghur population in the Chinese Xinjiang region, including sending more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities to internment camps.

China has denied these accusations, saying the camps are vocational training centers to help alleviate poverty and fight extremism.

In the United States, White House press secretary Jen Psaki last month said the administration would avoid sending officials to the Games — the diplomatic boycott — due to “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said, “The United States should stop politicizing sports, and stop disrupting and undermining the Beijing Winter Olympics, lest it should affect bilateral dialogue and cooperation in important areas and international and regional issues,” according to Chinese state media Xinhua.

Hot and cold Sino-U.S. history

Sino-U.S. ties blossomed in the 1970s after then-U.S. President Richard Nixon’s historic meeting with Communist leader Mao Zedong. The same decade saw a wave of immigration from southern China to American cities such as San Francisco, mostly to earn money and join relatives who were already in the country.

About 5 million Chinese Americans live in the United States today, census data show.

A man walks past installations of Bing Dwen Dwen,left, and Shuey Rhon Rhon, mascots of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Games, along a street in Beijing on Jan. 28, 2022.

Relations have slipped since 2017 over trade friction, consular spats and technology transfer issues. The two superpowers have jousted too over the autonomy of Taiwan, with Beijing calling it a Chinese territory and Washington offering to defend it, and crackdowns against antigovernment protesters in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong.

Some Chinese Americans often feel distant from human rights causes, and as ethnic Han people — China’s vast racial majority — are not “sympathetic to the Uyghurs,” said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

“Second, the boycott apparently makes bilateral relations more difficult, and it is even harder for Chinese Americans to travel back to China,” Sun added.

Sporting concerns

Justine Chen, 38, a Nashville, Tennessee-based communications director of Taiwanese American ancestry, says Beijing qualifies more as a showroom for the government than as an elite venue for athletes.

“I don’t think they should have won the bid in the first place. Not just because of their human rights record but because I don’t think they provide the best experience for athletes nor spectators,” she said. “It’s all a big show so the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) can pretend it has its affairs together when it really doesn’t.”

Chen attended the Beijing Summer Games of 2008 and the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Sydney offered better venues, she said.

“I think as a minority in America that has seen a huge amount of hate and violence over the past two years against people who look like me, I wish I could have more pride in an Asian country hosting such a large event that’s supposed to unify people of all kinds, including those participating in the Paralympics,” Chen said.

Human rights concerns

Many people of Asian ancestry in Southern California oppose China’s acts in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, said Ken Wu, Taiwanese American vice president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs Los Angeles chapter. His Washington, D.C.-based group lobbies Congress for pro-Taiwan legislation.

They support diplomatic boycotts but also a guarantee that athletes can attend the Beijing Olympics as a reward for their practice, he said.

“Right now, I think the whole advocacy community and the whole human rights community are kind of agreeing on that’s the direction we should go,” Wu said. “We should continue to pressure the states to exercise the diplomatic boycott and also hopefully we can get the businesses not to sponsor, but let’s put our support behind our athletes.”

While Chinese Americans differ on their views of China as the host city of the Winter Olympics, they all stand behind the athletes who have worked to qualify for a spot in what has become a contentious world competition.

Pamplona will host a conference on vehicle waste recycling

The meeting, organized by Navarre Environmental Management, It is part of the Navarra Waste Plan 2017-2027, and it will address issues such as the treatment and final destination of automotive waste.

The conference will take place in the Department of Rural Development, Environment and Local Administration of the Government of Navarra from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

It will set out the objective of this campaign, which will be carried out in the workshops themselves and through advertisements in the written press, to inform and raise public awareness about the correct treatment of waste derived from the maintenance and use of vehicles -mainly oil and tires-.

To this end, 600 posters and 50,000 brochures have been published, which will be distributed by the 450 workshops and dealers that exist in Navarra.

The meeting will begin with the presentation of the General Director of the Environment and Territory Planning, Eva García, the Deputy Deputy Director of Vehicles of the General Subdirectorate of Mobility of the DGT, Susana Gómez, and the president of the Navarra Association of Car Workshops. Vehicle Repair, Carlos Sagüés.

Waste management data for Navarra

will also be present LOTUS, a non-profit entity that manages and promotes the recycling of end-of-life tyres, through its head of Communication and Marketing, Isabel López-Ribadulla, who will explain how the management process is carried out and provide data on Navarra in 2016.

Among them, the 4,058 tons of out-of-use tires collected stand out (6% more than in 2015), at 562 generation points, of which 584 tons were used to prepare them for reuse and 3,555 tons were recycled in different recycling facilities. transformation, as explained by López-Ribadulla to EFE.

The meeting will also be attended by the director of Institutional Relations and Communication of the Used Oil Management System (SIGAUS), Fermín Martínez de Hurtado, as well as, and the technical manager of the integrated used tire treatment management system (TNU), Jose Sanchez. Efeverde