Tag: Beijing

  • Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announces ‘national unity’ deal with Palestinian rivals

    Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including rivals Fatah, to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza. “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,”

    Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and the other envoys. The announcement comes more than nine months into the genocide.

    Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza.

    The relentless fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis. China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.

    Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and world powers, including key Israeli backer the United States, have scrambled to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends. As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to “reconciliation”.

    “The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,” Wang said following the signing of the “Beijing Declaration” by the factions in the Chinese capital.

    “Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said. China, he added, was keen to “play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East”. Beijing, Wang said, called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.

    Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

    Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Several reconciliation bids have failed, but calls have grown since October 7, with violence also soaring in the West Bank, where Fatah is based.

    China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April, but a meeting scheduled for June was postponed. China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • Chinese factory shreds wedding photos for fuel

    Chinese factory shreds wedding photos for fuel

    At a dusty warehouse in northern China, Liu Wei feeds photos of beaming bridal couples into an industrial shredder — turning stories of heartbreak into a source of electricity.

    Wedding photos are big business in China, where parks, temples and historic sites often teem with newlyweds posing for elaborate shots capturing their supposedly unbreakable bond.

    But in a country where millions of divorces take place each year, many marital snaps end up shoved into the attic or tossed into the trash.

    Liu’s company offers an alternative: bereft ex-lovers can have their memories destroyed and recycled into fuel.

    “From our daily business exchanges, we found the destruction of personal belongings is a blank space nationwide,” the 42-year-old told AFP at his factory, 120 kilometres (75 miles) from Beijing.

    “People with less experience in the market probably wouldn’t have spotted this opportunity,” he added.

    Despite cultural taboos around destroying images of living people, Liu’s facility receives an average of five to 10 orders per day from across China.

    They include large wall photos and smaller decorative shots and albums, mostly cast from plastic, acrylic and glass.

    Workers heave the images onto a forklift truck and scatter them onto the warehouse floor for sorting.

    They then obscure every face with dark spray paint to protect client privacy and smash unshreddable glasswork with a sledgehammer.

    “These people are all trying to find closure,” said Liu. “They mainly want to unpick the knots in their hearts.”

    Complex motivations

    Sullied and broken, the pictures give glimpses of broken families in happier times.

    In one, a woman in a white bridal dress reclines on a bed of flowers, while another shows a lovestruck couple gazing into each other’s eyes.

    A sporty pair in matching kits pose with a football, while nearby, a smitten man presses his face tenderly to his pregnant wife’s belly.

    Brandishing his phone, Liu films the defaced photos and sends clips to customers for final confirmation.

    He estimates he has served about 1,100 clients — mostly under the age of 45, and around two-thirds women — since launching the service a year ago.

    They typically speak little about their separations, and several declined interview requests from AFP.

    Liu says the motivations for destroying wedding photos are often complex.

    “Few of them do this out of malice,” he told AFP.

    “It might be that this item brings on certain thoughts or feelings… or be a hurdle hard to overcome.”

    Some clients attend the destructions in person to give a sense of ceremony to a closing chapter in their lives, said Liu.

    Others keep their photos for years and only dispose of them when they remarry or finally come to terms with a former spouse’s death.

    Given the irreversible nature of the process, Liu says he gives clients a final chance to salvage their items in case they live to regret their decision.

    After getting the green light, he films his staff gently pushing the photos into the shredder’s gnashing teeth.

    The debris is taken to a nearby biofuel plant where it is processed with other household waste to generate electricity.

    ‘Respect others’ choices’

    Divorce rates soared in socially conservative China after marriage laws were relaxed in 2003.

    They have fallen dramatically since the government enacted a law in 2021 mandating a month-long “cooling-off” period before couples untie the knot.

    China registered 2.9 million divorces in 2022, down from over 4.3 million two years earlier.

    The number of marriages rose last year for the first time in nearly a decade, giving Beijing some relief as it seeks to reverse a steep fall in births.

    After annihilating the visual evidence of hundreds of unions, Liu says he has become numb to the emotions they stir up.

    “The deepest feeling I have in my heart towards my clients… is that you must respect others’ choices,” he said.

    “You must never persuade people one way or another,” he added. “It does no good.”

  • Beijing: US Secretary of State & Chinese officials hold ‘candid and constructive’ talks

    Beijing: US Secretary of State & Chinese officials hold ‘candid and constructive’ talks

    US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Chinese officials during a rare trip to Beijing, as relations between the two superpowers continue to deteriorate. Blinken is the first man of his post to meet Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, since 2018. Both Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang described the talks, held on Sunday, as “candid and constructive”.  

    Representatives of the two states ‘seemed to agree on little beyond keeping the conversation [of diplomacy] going’ as reported by Reuters. They did not appear to make concrete progress on disputes that include Taiwan, trade, human rights and fentanyl. 

    According to the State Department, Blinken stressed the “need to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” thereby underscoring the importance of open communication channels to manage their competition.

    Describing the US-China relationship as being at its lowest point since diplomatic relations began, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said the root cause was the United States’ incorrect perception of China.

    “We must take a responsible attitude toward the people, history and the world, and reverse the downward spiral of US-China relations,” Wang was reported to have said during the meeting, as released in a statement by China’s foreign ministry. 

    Xi Jinping hails ‘progress’

    On Monday, Blinken met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Their meeting could be instrumental in facilitating a summit between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden later this year.

    The visit reflects attempts from both states in ensuring disputes between the economic superpowers do not develop into outright conflict. 

    Xi praised the talks as “progress” between the two superpowers. Biden said he hoped to meet the Chinese leader again after their lengthy meeting in November, during the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. 

    “I’m hoping that, over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along,” Biden said, as reported by The Guardian.  

    It is likely that the two leaders will be in attendance at the next G20 summit, which is to be held in New Delhi in September. Xi is also invited to travel to San Francisco in November, to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

  • Beijing Covid spike prompts mass testing, panic buying

    Beijing Covid spike prompts mass testing, panic buying

    Fears of a hard Covid lockdown sparked panic buying in Beijing as long queues formed on Monday in a large central district for mass testing ordered by the Chinese authorities, according to AFP.

    China was already trying to contain a wave of infections in its largest city Shanghai, which has been almost entirely locked down for weeks and reported 51 new Covid deaths on Monday.

    Downtown Beijing’s biggest district Chaoyang, home to around 3.5 million people, ordered mass testing from Monday for residents and those coming to work there — the area hosts the headquarters of many multinational firms and embassies.

    Many of the capital’s fitness studios and gyms have cancelled classes or closed. Beijing has also imposed tight controls on entry to the city, with travellers required to have a negative Covid test from within 48 hours.

    On the other hand, anger mounts among locked-down Shanghai residents as city reports more Covid deaths

    China’s major financial hub of Shanghai has reported more Covid-19-related deaths, as residents vented their anger over a harsh lockdown and strict censorship online.

    The city, battling China’s biggest coronavirus outbreak so far, reported 12 new Covid-19 deaths, up from 11 a day before.

    On social media, netizens battled against censors overnight to share a six-minute video entitled “The Voice of April”, a montage of voices recorded over the course of the Shanghai outbreak, Reuters reported.

    PAKISTAN REPORTS 105 COVID CASES

    Pakistan has reported 105 coronavirus cases during the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 1,527,856.

    No new fatalities were reported during this period and the death toll remains 30,369. The positivity rate was recorded as 0.54 per cent while 186 patients are critical.

    Breakdown of deaths and cases: Punjab: 59 cases

    Sindh: 28 cases; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: 11 cases; Islamabad: 5 cases

    Azad Jammu and Kashmir: 2 cases

    Similarly, Pakistan reports 52 Covid-19 recoveries

    Pakistan has reported 52 coronavirus recoveries during the last 24 hours, according to the government’s portal for tracking the spread of the disease in the country.

    The total number has risen to 1,494,050 and the recovery rate is 97.8 per cent.

    COOK ISLANDS RECORDS FIRST COVID-19 DEATH

    The tiny South Pacific nation of the Cook Islands has reported its first coronavirus-related death, more than two years after the pandemic erupted.

    A 63-year-old woman, who had underlying health conditions, died on her way to hospital on the island of Aitutaki late on Saturday.

    “It is with great sadness that I announce that we have just recorded our first in-country death attributed to Covid-19,” Prime Minister Mark Brown said in a statement Sunday. “She had had all three anti-Covid vaccinations, but also had several serious underlying health conditions.”

    ONLY 29PC HOSPITALISED COVID PATIENTS FULLY WELL ONE YEAR ON: UK STUDY

    Not even one in four people have completely recovered from Covid a full year after being hospitalised with the disease, a UK study indicated, warning that long Covid could become a common condition.

    The study involving more than 2,300 people also found that women were 33 per cent less likely to fully recover than men, AFP reports.

    It also found that obese people were half as likely to fully recover, while those who needed mechanical ventilation were 58pc less likely.

    The study looked at the health of people who were discharged from 39 British hospitals with Covid between March 2020 and April 2021, then assessed the recovery of 807 of them five months and one year later.

  • PM Khan likely to attend Beijing Olympics 2022 in China next month

    PM Khan likely to attend Beijing Olympics 2022 in China next month

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan could well be one of the leading dignitaries watching the Winter Olympics, which start in Beijing on February 4.

     The government of China and China Sports Authority are looking forward to Pakistan’s PM Khan’s attending the opening or the closing ceremony or attending during the event. The invite was sent to the Pakistan Cricket Board, reports The News.

     “Yes, we are in contact with the Chinese authorities and have received a communication. We have forwarded that to the foreign ministry through the official channel,” said Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official.

    The United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada have announced a diplomatic boycott of the event, while North Korea was the latest country to pull out, citing the pandemic.

    Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Khalid Mansoor, a couple of days back, had revealed the prime minister’s plan to visit Beijing early next month.

  • Peng Shuai: Missing Chinese tennis star appears in Beijing

    Peng Shuai: Missing Chinese tennis star appears in Beijing

    Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has attended a tennis tournament in Beijing, according to official photos, amid mounting international concern about her whereabouts after she accused a senior Chinese leader of sexual assault.

    China Open, which organised the tournament, published pictures of Peng at the Fila Kids Junior Tennis Challenger Finals on Sunday.

    The photos were posted on the event’s official WeChat page.

    Hu Xijin, editor of the Communist Party-owned Global Times, also released a 37-second video on Twitter that showed Peng watching the match with five other people.

    The former doubles world number one had not been seen or heard from publicly since she said on social media on November 2 that former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli had coerced her into sex, and they later had an on-off consensual relationship.

    Neither Zhang nor the Chinese government has commented on her allegation. Peng’s social media post was quickly deleted and the topic has been blocked from discussion on China’s heavily censored internet.

    World tennis bodies have expressed concern, with the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) threatening to pull tournaments out of China. The United States and the United Kingdom have called for evidence of Peng’s whereabouts and safety.

    A spokesman for the WTA told Reuters news agency that the photographs and video footage of Peng that emerged on Sunday remain “insufficient” and do not address its concerns, reported Al Jazeera.

    Peng’s appearance at the tournament came after she visited a popular restaurant in downtown Beijing on Saturday night.

    Hu had also posted a video of the outing, which a restaurant manager confirmed to Reuters on Sunday.

    Seven people including Peng were at the Sichuanese restaurant, said the manager, Zhou Hongwei, adding that they ate in a private room and were joined by the restaurant’s owner.

    “It was crowded at the restaurant as usual,” Zhou said, showing a bill that included noodles and bamboo shoots. “They didn’t have much. I think they mostly chatted.”

    Peng adds to a growing number of Chinese businesspeople, activists and citizens who have disappeared in recent years after criticising party figures or in crackdowns on corruption or pro-democracy and labour rights campaigns.

    Some re-emerge weeks or months later without explanation, suggesting they are warned not to disclose they were detained or the reason.

    Steve Simon, the WTA’s chairman and CEO, expressed concern for Peng’s safety on Saturday, despite Hu posting her videos in a restaurant.

    “While it is positive to see her, it remains unclear if she is free and able to make decisions and take actions on her own, without coercion or external interference. This video alone is insufficient,” Simon said. “Our relationship with China is at a crossroads.”

    The International Olympic Committee has remained quiet about the status of Peng, who competed in three Olympics, helping to contribute to the IOC’s multimillion-dollar revenue from broadcasting and sponsorships.

    Emma Terho, the newly elected head of the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission that is charged with representing the interests of Olympic athletes, said in a statement Saturday: “We support the quiet diplomacy” approach favoured by the IOC.

    Last week, the foreign arm of state TV issued a statement in English attributed to Peng that retracted her accusation against Zhang. The WTA’s Simon questioned its legitimacy, while others said it only increased their concern about her safety.

    Meanwhile, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s public disappearance last year for almost three months made headlines across the world, as reports speculated that the charismatic businessman was either arrested or was maintaining a low profile after his comments against the Chinese regulators.

  • Afghan Taliban want China’s friendship, say will not interfere in Chinese affairs

    After seizing about one-third of Afghanistan’s districts, the Taliban this week swept through the northeastern Badakhshan province, reaching the mountainous border with China’s Xinjiang region, reports The Wall Street Journal.

    These days, the Taliban go out of their way to ease China’s concerns, eager to secure Beijing’s acquiescence to their rule.

    “The Taliban want to show China goodwill,” said Qian Feng, head of research at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University in Beijing. “They hope that China can play a more important role, especially after America pulls out its troops.”

    With the American military withdrawal nearly complete, China is also becoming increasingly powerful in the Central Asian states that border Afghanistan to the north.

    “We care about the oppression of Muslims, be it in Palestine, in Myanmar, or in China, and we care about the oppression of non-Muslims anywhere in the world. But what we are not going to do is interfere in China’s internal affairs,” said a senior Taliban official in Doha, Qatar.

    Another official, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, pointed out that the Islamist group pledged in the February 2020 Doha deal with Washington to not let the country’s territory be used against other nations and to not accept any refugees or exiles outside the framework of international migration law.

    “We will not allow anyone whether it is an individual or an entity — to use the soil of Afghanistan against the United States, its allies, or any other country, and that includes China,” Shaheen said.

    While caring about the plight of the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, the Taliban will seek to help their fellow Muslims through political dialogue with Beijing, he added. “We do not know the details. But if we have the details, we will show our concern,” he said. “If there are some problems with the Muslims, of course, we will talk with the Chinese government.”