Asia
Russian bombers fly over Belarus amid Ukraine tensions
Russia on Saturday sent a pair of long-range nuclear-capable bombers on patrol over its ally Belarus amid spiraling tensions over Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the two Tu-22M3 bombers practiced interacting with the Belarusian air force and air defense during a four-hour mission. The flight followed several similar patrols over Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north.
The mission came as the Kremlin has moved troops from Siberia and the Far East to Belarus for sweeping joint drills. The deployment added to the Russian military buildup near Ukraine, fueling Western fears of a possible invasion.
Russia has denied any plans of attacking Ukraine, but urged the U.S. and its allies to provide a binding pledge that they won’t accept Ukraine into NATO, won’t deploy offensive weapons, and will roll back NATO deployments to Eastern Europe. Washington and NATO have rejected the demands.
The West has called on Russia to pull back an estimated 100,000 troops from areas near Ukraine, but the Kremlin has responded by saying it will station troops wherever it needs to on Russian territory. As the tensions over Ukraine soared, the Russian military has launched a series of war games spreading from the Arctic to the Black Sea.
The Russian troop deployment to Belarus raised concerns in the West that Moscow could stage an attack on Ukraine from the north. The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv is just 75 kilometers (50 miles) from the Belarus border.
In recent months, Russia has conducted a series of joint drills with Belarus and repeatedly sent its nuclear-capable long-range bombers to patrol over Belarus, which borders NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who has increasingly relied on the Kremlin’s political and financial support amid bruising Western sanctions triggered by his crackdown on domestic protests, has called for closer defense ties with Moscow and recently offered to host Russian nuclear weapons.
In an interview with a Russian state TV host aired Saturday, Lukashenko charged that the Russian-led security alliance demonstrated its quick deployment capability when its members briefly sent forces last month to Kazakhstan to help stabilize the situation after deadly riots.
“ While they (NATO) will be still getting prepared to send some troops here, we will already stand at the English Channel, and they know it,” he said in a reference to Western allies.
The Belarusian leader downplayed the threat of war, but added that if it still erupts “it will last for three or four days at most.”
“There is no one there to fight us,” he said about Ukraine.
On Saturday, the German newspaper Bild published a report alleging that Russia is poised to attack Ukraine from several directions, capture major cities and install a puppet government. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova angrily dismissed the allegations.
As war fears mounted, Ukrainian authorities launched a series of civil defense drills for residents.
“I am here to learn how to defend myself, defend my relatives and also understand how to act in the situation,” Kyiv resident Ilya Goncharov said after taking part in drills on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital. “I am happy that I came here to learn the basics of self defense and first aid.”
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city just 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of the Russian border, thousands of people took to the streets Saturday carrying giant yellow-and-blue banners in the colors of the national flag in a show of determination to protect the city.
“We want to show that there are people in Kharkiv who are ready to defend it and fight back,” said marcher Svitlana Galashko.
Amid the standoff over Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered 2,000 U.S.-based troops to Poland and Germany and shifted 1,000 more from Germany to Romania in a show of the U.S. commitment to NATO’s eastern flank.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled Moscow’s readiness for more talks with Washington and its NATO allies. As part of high-level diplomacy to ease the tensions, French President Emmanuel Macron is set to head to Moscow and Kyiv on Monday and Tuesday, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will travel to Kyiv and Moscow on Feb. 14-15.
On Saturday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a call with Macron and “they agreed that finding a diplomatic solution to the current tensions must remain the overriding priority.”
READ: French, German leaders to visit Russia, Ukraine amid tension
Johnson’s office said he and the French president “also stressed that NATO must be united in the face of Russian aggression” and “agreed to continue to work together to develop a package of sanctions which would come into force immediately should Russia further invade Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also spoke Saturday with European Council President Charles Michel, saying on Twitter that the tensions around Ukraine’s situation must be de-esclated.
In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula after Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader fled the country. Russia also threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where over 14,000 have been killed in fighting.
Amid the tensions with the West, Putin on Friday attended the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and met with China’s leader Xi Jinping to strengthen the two countries’ alliance. In a joint statement, Putin and Xi declared their opposition to any expansion of NATO while affirming that the island of Taiwan is a part of China.
Putin and Xi announced that the relations between Moscow and Beijing are “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era” and their friendship “has no limits.”
India to offer jobs to 80 Afghan military cadets
India would offer jobs to as many as 80 cadets of the Afghan defence forces, who recently graduated from various military academies in this country but could not return to their homeland.
But jobs would be offered to these Afghan military cadets -- who got stranded here following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August last year -- only after a year's training, according to the Afghan Embassy, manned by a few diplomats of the erstwhile government.
In a statement, the Afghan Embassy in Delhi said that the 80 young Afghan cadets had been offered a 12-month training course in “effective English communication for business and office purpose” under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme.
"Given the challenges and uncertainty facing these freshly graduated young cadets due to the prevailing situation back home, the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in India welcomes and applauds this generous move by the Indian government,” it added.
The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation is the flagship training programme of the Indian Foreign Ministry.
Read: Xi says ready to work with Putin to push for China-Russia cooperation results in all fields
India was among several countries that evacuated their diplomatic staff from Kabul when the Taliban took over the Afghan capital on August 15, with the US troops ending their 20-year military presence in that country.
However, exactly two weeks later, India began direct communication with the Taliban. The country's envoy in Qatar, Deepak Mittal, held talks with Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban's Political Office, in the Indian Embassy in Doha.
At that meeting, Ambassador Mittal had raised India's concern that Afghanistan's soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner, "to which Abbas Stanekzai assured him that these issues would be positively addressed", as per the Foreign Ministry.
India is worried about the security situation in Afghanistan, given it has already infused over three billion USD worth development aid into that country and the horrific memories of the Taliban's role in the hijacking of an Indian airliner in 1999.
At the time too, the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party was in power, led by then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
More world leaders wish Beijing Winter Olympics, Paralympics complete success
More leaders of foreign countries and international organizations have of late extended Spring Festival greetings to the Chinese people and conveyed their wish that the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics will be a complete success.
The goodwill was expressed in messages and letters sent to General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as through other means.
Russian President Vladimir Putin extended greetings to the Chinese people for the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, saying that the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics will be a major event of global significance.
Putin said he is convinced that China's extensive experience in the excellent organization of representative international competitions will make it possible to hold this global festival of sports of the highest level.
Putin added that he is looking forward to visiting China and attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, said the Beijing Winter Olympics is an auspicious event for the CPC and the Chinese people in an important year in their pursuit of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and their new journey towards the Second Centenary Goal.
The event also marks another great victory secured by China against the backdrop of an unprecedentedly severe pandemic, added Kim, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission.
It demonstrates that no difficulty or challenge can prevent the Chinese people -- rallied closely around the CPC Central Committee with Xi at its core -- from courageously marching forward, he said.
The Beijing Winter Olympics, he added, is a festival to the people and athletes of all countries across the world aspiring after peace, friendship and solidarity.
He also expressed his confidence that it will certainly be a simple, safe and splendid Olympic event and write a brilliant page in the history of international sports.
The Olympics is a symbol of human solidarity, said Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, adding that he is confident that the Chinese government and people will overcome the impact of COVID-19, successfully host the Winter Olympics, and usher in the new year with fruitful results.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev expressed warm congratulations on the grand opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics, wishing China greater achievements and new victories on the path of realizing the Chinese Dream.
Expressing his sincere wish for the complete success of the Beijing Winter Olympics, First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said he believes that the grand gathering will become a major historic event that demonstrates China's great potential.
Czech President Milos Zeman wished all Chinese people strength and courage in the new year and success in achieving all goals, and wished the Beijing Winter Olympics, the world's biggest upcoming sports event, a complete success.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said he believes that the whole world will witness the success of the Beijing Winter Olympics. He also wished the Chinese people happiness, health and prosperity.
Extending his greetings to the Chinese people, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez said that as a global sports event, the Beijing Winter Olympics is of self-evident importance to the world and conducive to the development of winter sports, and that he is honored to be part of it.
Other leaders extending greetings and wishes include Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the Fourth King of Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the Fifth King of Bhutan Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Tunisian President Kais Saied, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir Mayardit, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Bahraini Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Senegalese President Macky Sall, Comorian President Azali Assoumani, Seychellois President Wavel Ramkalawan, Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of the Central African Republic Faustin-Archange Touadera, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, Cote d'Ivoire's President Alassane Ouattara, Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Gambian President Adama Barrow, Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio, Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, Serb Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Milorad Dodik, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, President of the Commonwealth of Dominica Charles Savarin, Surinamese President Chandrikapersad Santokhi, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas Cornelius Smith, Antigua and Barbuda's Governor-General Rodney Williams, Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Keith Rowley, Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown, Fiji's Acting Prime Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Director-General of the World Trade Organization Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Francesco Rocca.
Xi says ready to work with Putin to push for China-Russia cooperation results in all fields
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday said he stands ready to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin to chart the future and provide guidance for bilateral relations under new historical circumstances.
Xi said he is willing to work with Putin to promote the continuous transformation of high-level mutual trust between China and Russia into results of cooperation in all fields and bring real benefits to the people of the two countries.
Despite the multiple challenges that face the world, China and Russia have stayed true to their original aspirations and maintained the steady development of bilateral relations, said Xi.
He said the two countries firmly supported each other in upholding their respective core interests, and have enhanced their political and strategic mutual trust, adding that bilateral trade between the two countries has hit a record high.
Read: World leaders: Who’s coming, who isn’t to Beijing Olympics
Xi noted the two sides have actively taken part in the reform and development of the global governance system, practiced true multilateralism, and safeguarded true democratic spirit. He added that these efforts have galvanized the solidarity of the international society to tide over this difficult time and upheld international equity and justice.
Bali reopens to foreign travelers from all countries
Direct international flights to Bali have resumed for the first time in two years as Indonesia opens the resort island to foreign travelers from all countries, but mandatory quarantine remains in place for all visitors.
Officials had said in October that Bali would welcome foreign arrivals from 19 countries that meet World Health Organization criteria, such as having their COVID-19 cases under control. But there were no direct international flights to Bali until Thursday, when Garuda Indonesia operated its first such flight in two years from Tokyo.
Singapore Airlines will introduce a regular direct route to and from Denpasar in Bali starting Feb. 16, said Taufan Yudhistira, the public relations manager at Bali’s international airport.
Fully vaccinated travelers need to quarantine for five days in a hotel or on a liveaboard boat certified by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, and travelers who have received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine must quarantine for seven days.
Indonesia reported 27,197 new coronavirus infections and 38 deaths on Thursday in the latest 24-hour period. The country has seen more than 4.4 million total cases since the pandemic began.
Read: Aid reaching disaster-hit Tonga brings first virus outbreak
The country’s latest surge in cases, driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant, has mostly been concentrated in Jakarta, but in recent days infections have “increased significantly” in Java and Bali, said Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the government minister who leads the COVID-19 response in Java and Bali.
The quarantine for foreign arrivals is intended to prevent further spread of the virus, said Pandjaitan.
Before the pandemic, Bali’s airport accommodated more than 200 international flights with at least one million passengers per day in 2019. The island was closed to international flights after COVID-19 hit the world’s fourth most populous country in 2020.
Tourism is the main source of income in Bali, which is home to more than 4 million people who are mainly Hindu in the mostly Muslim archipelago nation. Bali’s tourist areas were deserted two decades ago after visitors were scared off by deadly terror attacks that targeted foreigners, but the island has worked to overcome that image.
The reopening of Bali to travelers from all countries will help boost the island’s economy, which has been badly affected by the pandemic, Pandjaitan said.
The reopening will also serve as a “trial,” said Tourism and Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno, as the government prepares to host G-20 events in Bali later this year.
A G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in mid-February was supposed to be held in Bali but has been relocated to Jakarta because of the surge in COVID-19 cases. Some attendees will join the events virtually.
World leaders: Who’s coming, who isn’t to Beijing Olympics
The U.S., Britain and a handful of others aren’t sending dignitaries to the Beijing Winter Games as part of a diplomatic boycott, but the Chinese capital is still attracting an array of world leaders for Friday’s opening ceremony.
A look at who is attending, who is staying away and why:
ATTENDING
— RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin is meeting Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping ahead of the opening ceremony, underscoring closer ties between Beijing and Moscow as they both face Western criticism and pressure.
— EGYPT AND SERBIA: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic have growing frictions with the West over their authoritarian policies and human rights records. Both leaders have gravitated toward China. Vucic called Xi his “brother” for supplying Serbia with respirators and vaccines.
— SAUDI ARABIA, QATAR, UAE: Beijing’s Gulf relations are above all about energy. China is Saudi Arabia’s largest buyer of oil and a major customer for Qatar’s natural gas. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, is appearing at the Winter Games as investors and some governments signal warming relations after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
— CENTRAL ASIA: The leaders of all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia are heading to Beijing, highlighting the region’s increasingly close ties with China. Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Zhaparov pushed last month for the revival of a long-delayed project to build a railroad from China through his country to Uzbekistan. China is Turkmenistan’s only reliable major buyer of natural gas.
Also read: Clap, don't chant: China aims for 'Zero COVID' Olympics
— ARGENTINA AND ECUADOR: Argentina is set to become the first major Latin American country to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative. President Alberto Fernández is also expected to discuss China’s help building Argentina’s first nuclear power plant since 1981. President Guillermo Lasso is seeking to renegotiate Ecuador’s $4.6 billion debt with China.
— UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will attend. The IOC is a close partner of the U.N., Guterres said, and the Olympics bring together people with a message of solidarity and peace. “This is ... a message that, in my opinion, is more relevant than the political circumstances that exists in the countries where the Olympics take place,” he told The Associated Press.
NOT ATTENDING
— BOYCOTTS: The United States announced a diplomatic boycott while allowing its athletes to compete. Major U.S. allies followed including Britain, Australia and Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “We are extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government.” Kosovo and Lithuania, whose relations with China have nosedived over their ties with Taiwan, are also taking part in the boycott. India said it won’t send any officials following reports that a Chinese military commander who was involved in deadly clashes with Indian border forces in 2020 had been chosen as one of the Olympic torchbearers in Beijing.
Also read: China says US diplomatic boycott violates Olympic spirit
— NON-BOYCOTTERS: The Norwegian and Swedish royals, who normally attend the Winter Olympics, aren’t going. Neither are any leaders from Germany, Austria or Switzerland, all big winter sports nations. Officially they’re citing the pandemic, rather than any diplomatic protest. Others such as Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand have cited COVID-19 restrictions while also expressing concern over China’s human rights situation.
Aid reaching disaster-hit Tonga brings first virus outbreak
For more than two years, the isolation of the Pacific archipelago nation of Tonga helped keep COVID-19 at bay.
But last month’s volcanic eruption and tsunami brought outside deliveries of desperately needed fresh water and medicine — and brought the virus.
Tonga is only one of several Pacific island countries to experience their first outbreaks over the past month. There is growing concern that their precarious health care systems might quickly become overburdened, and that the remoteness that once protected them may now make them difficult to help.
“Clearly when you’ve got countries that have already got a very stretched, and fragile health system, when you have an emergency or a disaster and then you have the potential introduction of the virus, that’s going to make an already serious situation immeasurably worse,” said John Fleming, the Asia-Pacific head of health for the Red Cross.
Tonga was coated with ash following the Jan. 15 eruption of the massive undersea Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano, then hit with a tsunami that followed.
Only three people have been confirmed killed, but several small settlements in outlying islands were wiped off the map and the volcanic ash tainted much of the drinking water.
Also read: Virus enters Tonga along with disaster aid, lockdown planned
The nation of 105,000 had reported only one case of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic — a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionary returning to the island from Africa via New Zealand who tested positive in October — and authorities debated whether to let international aid in.
They decided they had to, but despite strict precautions unloading ships and planes from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Britain and China, two Tongan men who worked at the capital’s Queen Salote Wharf handling shipments tested positive on Tuesday.
The two were moved into isolation, but in tests of 36 possible contacts, one’s wife and two children also tested positive, while the others tested negative, the local Matangi Tonga news site reported.
“The highest priority now is the close contacts of these positive cases and whom they interacted with” since Jan. 29, Health Minister Saia Piukala was quoted as saying.
It was not clear how many people they might have come into contact with, but the government released a list of locations where the virus might have spread, including a church on two days, several shops, a bank on two days and a kindergarten during school hours.
Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni told reporters “some” of the five infected had started to show symptoms and were being quarantined at a medical facility. He imposed an open-ended lockdown starting 6 p.m. on Wednesday; one that could be particular arduous for Tongans because most have been without any internet connections since the volcanic eruption severed the only fiber optic cable to the country.
It is not yet known what variant of the virus has reached Tonga, nor who brought it in.
Sailors aboard the Australian aid ship HMAS Adelaide reported nearly two dozen infections after an outbreak on board, but authorities said it had been unloaded at a different wharf. Crew members aboard aid flights from Japan and Australia also reported infections.
Experience from elsewhere in the pandemic, especially with prevalence now of the rapid-spreading omicron variant, suggests that Tonga faces an uphill battle in trying to contain the outbreak, Indonesian epidemiologist Dicky Budiman told The Associated Press.
Also read: 23 Australians on ship delivering aid to Tonga have virus
Some 61% of Tongans are fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data, but because the country has not yet seen any infections, there will be no natural immunity and it is not clear whether the shots were given long enough ago that they may now be less effective, Budiman said.
The global experience has been that when the virus hits such countries, the number of hospitalizations is very high, he said, recommending that the government immediately start offering booster shots and open vaccinations to younger children.
“If we race with this virus we will not win,” he said in an interview from Australia. “So we have to move forward by protecting the most vulnerable.”
This is already starting to be seen in the Solomon Islands, which reported its first community outbreak on Jan. 19. With only 11% of its population fully vaccinated, the virus has been spreading rapidly with the Red Cross reporting that less than two weeks later, there are now more than 780 recorded cases and five COVID-19 related deaths.
Elsewhere, Fiji — still reeling from damage caused by Cyclone Cody in early January — has been battling an ongoing spike in cases, fueled by omicron, and cases have been reported for the first time in Kiribati, Samoa and Palau.
Palau has nearly its entire population fully vaccinated, while Fiji has 68% and Samoa 62%, but Kiribati is only at 33%.
The key to ensuring hospitals aren’t overwhelmed is to make sure more people get shots, Budiman said.
“These countries that choose to have this COVID-free strategy, they are very vulnerable,” he said.
India's unemployment rate falls to 6.57%, lowest since March 2021: CMIE
India's unemployment rate witnessed a sharp decline to 6.57 per cent in January, the lowest since March 2021, as the country gradually recovers with easing of restrictions following a decline in Omicron cases, according to CMIE.
While unemployment in urban India stood at 8.16 per cent in January, in rural areas it was the lowest at 5.84 per cent, as per data by independent think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), reports Business Standard.
In December, the unemployment rate stood at 7.91 per cent, with urban at 9.30 per cent and rural at 7.28 per cent, it added.
Telangana reported the lowest unemployment rate at 0.7 per cent in January, followed by Gujarat (1.2 per cent), Meghalaya (1.5 per cent) and Odisha (1.8 per cent).
Read: How India plans to spiff up economic growth
However, Haryana had the highest unemployment rate at 23.4 per cent, followed by Rajasthan at 18.9 per cent.
CMIE had estimated the number of unemployed in India as of December 2021 at 53 million, of which a huge proportion were women.
CMIE MD and CEO Mahesh Vyas, in his analysis of the December data, said 35 million people were actively looking for work in December 2021, of which 23 per cent or 8 million were women.
An equally important challenge is to provide employment to the additional 17 million who were also not employed and were willing to work if work was available, although they were not actively looking for employment, Vyas added.
On World Wetlands Day, India adds two more Ramsar sites
On International Wetlands Day 2022, India added two Ramsar sites upscaling the number from 47 to 49.
The two new Ramsar sites (Wetlands of International Importance), Khijadia Bird Sanctuary in Gujarat and Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh were announced on Wednesday, reports ANI.
The 47th Ramsar site was Uttar Pradesh's Haiderpur Wetland.
Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav said, "Development and environment should walk together in a perennial manner. 40 per cent of biodiversity comes from the wetland."
Furthermore, while stressing the importance of wetland day, he said, "Today is International wetland day. There are more than two lakhs of small ponds in India but there are also a few that needs to be preserved. India has 52 national tiger forests in India. There are two blue tag beaches in India. We have added two Ramsar sites today."
While, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, said, "There are 18,000 ponds in Haryana, now at least 6,000 ponds are overflowing and are full of dirt. We have formed Pond authority to take care of it. This authority this year aims to preserve/ maintain 1,900 ponds."
Haryana has also introduced pensions for trees as well.
After this announcement, India now has a network of 49 Ramsar sites covering an area of 10,93,636 hectares, the highest in South Asia.
Read: How India plans to spiff up economic growth
Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh provides a safe wintering and staging ground for a large number of species of the Central Asian Flyway. Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary is a coastal wetland with rich avifaunal diversity providing a safe habitat to endangered and vulnerable species.
Ramsar Sites in India are declared under the Ramsar Convention, which was established by UNESCO in 1971. A site is declared as a Ramsar Wetland Site in India if it meets any one of the nine criteria set under the Convention of Wetland.
Environmentalists are of the view that following wetlands destruction, floods and drought damage, nutrient runoff and water pollution, shoreline erosion, has triggered a decline in wildlife populations.
Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad today released National Wetland Decadal Change Atlas highlighting the changes which have happened in Wetlands across the country in the past decade.
Efforts to conserve wetlands in India began in 1987 and the main focus of governmental efforts was on biological methods of conservation.
China will do its best to deliver "streamlined, safe and splendid" Olympic Winter Games: Xi
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday delivered a video address at the opening ceremony of the 139th session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), saying that China will do its best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid Olympic Winter Games.
Xi extended a warm welcome to IOC President Thomas Bach and IOC members who have gathered in Beijing, the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, during the Spring Festival, and held the 139th IOC Session.
Read: President Xi Jinping, China’s ‘chairman of everything’
Noting that the world today, under the combined impact of changes unseen in a hundred years and a once-in-a-century pandemic, is entering a new period of turbulence and transformation and facing multiple challenges to humanity, Xi said the IOC has led the Olympic Movement in forging ahead with courage and fortitude, playing an important and unique role in galvanizing global solidarity and cooperation to tide over this difficult time.
He thanked the IOC for its active contribution to the development of sport in China over the years and for its strong support and guidance for China's bid and preparation for the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.
Xi stressed that from "One World, One Dream" in 2008 to "Together for a Shared Future" in 2022, China has taken an active part in the Olympic Movement and consistently championed the Olympic spirit. China is committed to pursuing the Olympic ideal with concrete actions.
Read: A Uyghur gets death sentence, as China bans once OK’d books
"By preparing for and organizing the Winter Games, we have successfully engaged 300 million Chinese in sport on snow and ice. We have also promoted regional development, ecological conservation, green and innovative solutions and the betterment of people's lives in China, and created greater space for the development of winter sport worldwide," he said.
Noting that the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 will open on Friday, Xi said the world is turning its eyes to China, and China is ready. "China will do its best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid Games, and act on the Olympic motto 'Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together'."