New Delhi: The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) is expected to shift Asia Cup from Pakistan and decide on an alternate venue in March as BCCI secretary Jay Shah and PCB chairman Najam Sethi discussed the issue during a formal meeting in Bahrain on Saturday.
All heads of ACC member nations attended the emergent meeting which was called at the behest of Sethi after the continental body released its itinerary and Pakistan wasn’t named the hosts for the Asia Cup.
The Asia Cup was initially allotted to Pakistan and was scheduled in September this year but Shah, who is also the ACC chairman, had announced last October that India will not travel to Pakistan due diplomatic tension between the two nations.
“The ACC had a constructive dialogue on the upcoming Asia Cup 2023. The Board agreed to continue discussions on operations, timelines and any other specifics with a view to ensure the success of the tournament. An update on the matter would be taken on the next ACC Executive Board Meeting to be held in March 2023,” ACC said in a statement.
While a decision will come only next month, a senior BCCI official privy to the development told PTI that it is highly unlikely that Pakistan will host the tournament.
“With India deciding against travelling to Pakistan, the tournament will have to be shifted. A tournament without Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill will have the sponsors back out,” the official said.
One ACC insider said Sethi has just taken over PCB and if he had ceded ground on the hosting rights in the first meeting itself, then it would have led to a bad impression at home.
Pakistan is currently going through an economic crisis. The inflation has hit the country very hard as one USD is now equal to 277 Pakistani Rupee. Organising a high-profile tournament like Asia Cup, even if ACC pays a grant could burn a hole in PCB coffers.
So strategically, if the tournament is held in the UAE, there is every possibility that all the member nations will also get to earn apart from the broadcast revenues.
In another decision, the ACC has decided to increase the annual budget allocated for Afghanistan Cricket Association to 15 percent from six.
The ACC has assured that it will help the Afghanistan board in all possible ways so that women’s cricket can be revived in the country. Women are banned from playing sport under Taliban rule.
The Executive Board also approved of the inclusion of teams from Japan and Indonesia in the ACC pathway tournaments to participate in the events as invitees.
New Delhi, February 05: The Asian Cricket Council will decide on an alternate venue for the Asia Cup ODI tournament in March after BCCI secretary Jay Shah and PCB chairman Najam Sethi had their first formal meeting in Bahrain on Saturday. The Asia Cup was initially allotted to Pakistan and was scheduled in September this year but Shah, who is also the ACC chairman, had announced last October that India will not travel to Pakistan.
It is understood that United Arab Emirates with three venues—Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah—are favourites to host the tournament but the decision has been withheld for the time being.
All heads of ACC member nations attended the emergent meeting which was called at the behest of PCB chairman Sethi after ACC under chairmanship of Shah released the continental body’s itinerary where Pakistan wasn’t named the hosts.
“The ACC affiliates met today and there were a lot of constructive discussions. But the shift of venue has been postponed till March. But be rest assured that with India not going to Pakistan, the tournament will have to be shifted. A tournament without Virat Kohlis, Rohit Sharmas and Shubman Gills will have the sponsors back out,” a senior BCCI official privy to the development told PTI.
One ACC insider said Sethi has just taken over PCB and if he would have ceded ground on the hosting rights in the first meeting itself, then it would have led to a bad impression at home.
Pakistan is currently going through an economic crisis and inflation has hit the country very hard with the country’s currency plummeting to Pakistani Rupee 277 against 1 US Dollar. Organising a high profile tournament like Asia Cup, even if ACC pays a grant could burn a hole in PCB coffers.
So strategically, if the tournament is held in the UAE, there is every possibility that all the member nations will also get to earn apart from the broadcast revenues.
In another decision, the ACC has decided to increase the annual budget allocated for Afghanistan Cricket Association to 15 percent from six.
The ACC has assured that it will help the Afghanistan board in all possible ways so that women’s cricket can be revived in the country. Women are banned from playing sport under Taliban rule.–(PTI)
Chris Hipkins was confirmed on Sunday as New Zealand’s next prime minister as he received unanimous support from Labour Party lawmakers to succeed Jacinda Ardern.
Hipkins, 44, will be officially sworn in to his new role on Wednesday.
“We will deliver a very solid government that is focused on the bread-and-butter issues that matter to New Zealanders and that are relevant to the times that we are in now,” Hipkins told reporters in Wellington, the Associated Press reported.
Hipkins served as New Zealand’s COVID-19 response manager during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ardern on Thursday said she would resign as prime minister, in a shock announcement. She also confirmed that New Zealand’s national elections will take place on October 14.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Chinese diplomats are fanning out with a new softer message for international partners and adversaries alike. Gone is the aggressive “wolf warrior” rhetoric. In its place, a warmer tone and a promise of economic cooperation.
Vice Premier Liu He took Beijing’s diplomatic olive branch to the exclusive annual huddle of the global political and business elite in Davos, Switzerland this week. With a heated transatlantic trade spat exploding in panel after panel and melting the Swiss Alpine snow, Liu offered a kinder, gentler Beijing.
“China’s national reality dictates that opening up to the world is a must, not an expediency. We must open up wider and make it work better,” Liu said on Tuesday.
The Chinese charm offensive drove a lot of private conversations in Davos amid the World Economic Forum gathering. Executives are eager to learn more — and as always to explore opportunities in a market as big as China’s. The shift, if real, would signal a return to something the Davos crowd considers more normal: a somewhat predictable, business-friendly Chinese communist leadership, more interested in making money than waging fights against internal critics or outside enemies. The improved economic relationship between China and Australia has fueled such optimism.
Western officials have heard the message as well, but are suspicious that the outreach is more diplomatic sparkle than an indication of substantive changes. They are leery that the growing economic and military threat posed by China remains despite the velvet gloves.
The shift has been gathering steam for weeks after China’s President Xi Jinping offered a warmer tone in his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Bali in November. Xi urged a return to “healthy and stable growth” in bilateral relations.
That has set in motion a cascade of Chinese initiatives seemingly aimed at repairing the harm done by years of “wolf warrior”-style diplomacy; saber-rattling across the Taiwan Strait; a more bellicose military posture in the Indo-Pacific; economic coercion; and high-tech espionage.
China’s Foreign Ministry is rolling out a rhetorical red carpet for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit in early February. Europe is bracing for a multi-country diplomacy spree by former Foreign Minister Wang Yi. On Wednesday in Zurich, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s meeting with Liu reaped an invitation to visit China “in the near future.” And the Chinese Foreign Ministry signaled gentler public messaging by banishing pugnacious spokesperson Zhao Lijian to the bureaucratic backwater of the ministry’s Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs last week.
Western officials still have their guard up, though — particularly since Chinese diplomats were until recently issuing outright threats to their host countries.
“We are seeing a warmer Beijing that’s keen to talk about a business-as-usual approach, and there are fewer wolf warrior narratives,” an EU official told POLITICO on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak on the record. “However, a softer face doesn’t necessarily mean a softer heart.”
Russia’s friend
That skepticism springs from the fact that Beijing isn’t matching its rhetorical expressions of bilateral goodwill with any substantive policy shifts. China’s “no limits” alignment with Russia continues even after Moscow’s war on Ukraine and record numbers of Chinese military aircraft regularly menace Taiwan. Beijing denies its well-documented abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and continues what the U.S. calls “unfair trade practices” that sustain billions of dollars of U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.
There are also suspicions that China is seeking to prevent the imposition of additional crippling U.S. export restrictions on high-technology items such as semi-conductors — and slow down or derail U.S. efforts to persuade its allies to do likewise.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Beijing | Pool photo by Ed Jones/Getty Images
“Xi wants the American boot off his neck — he can’t stomach any more tech containment or more sanctions and recognizes that a lot of [Beijing’s] foreign diplomacy has backfired and he wants to lower the temperature,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Beijing’s uptick in diplomatic outreach aims to “seek a reprieve from Washington’s regulatory assault on China’s tech sector, and then lay the groundwork to stimulate China’s economy after this current COVID wave subsides,” Singleton said.
China is in desperate need of an international image overhaul. The results of a Pew Research survey published in June indicated “negative views of China remain at or near historic highs” in 19 European and Asian countries due to concerns about human rights and perceptions of a growing Chinese military threat. Pew Research Center survey results released in September revealed that 82 percent of Americans in 2022 had “an unfavorable opinion of China,” an increase from 76 percent the previous year.
Beijing’s change in tone reflects its alarm at the Biden administration’s success in rallying international support for his China-countering Indo-Pacific Strategy. That has included arch-rival Japan’s embrace of closer defense ties with the U.S. underwritten by a multibillion-dollar investment in Tokyo’s military.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s sense of vulnerability is heightened by China’s raging COVID outbreak and an economy pummeled by three years of lockdown linked to the country’s now-defunct zero-COVID policy. “There’s recognition [in Beijing] that — wait a minute, the U.S. is not going anywhere, it is still a major geopolitical power — and so China has to reengage with the United States,” said Victor Shih, an expert in Chinese elite politics at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.
Uphill struggle
But old habits die hard. Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, the incoming Chinese ambassador to the U.S., accused the Biden administration of “besieging China through geopolitics such as the Indo-Pacific Strategy,” in a speech on Monday. And besides Zhao’s removal from the Foreign Ministry press briefing platform, Xi hasn’t fired or demoted any senior “wolf warrior” diplomats, points out Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
EU officials in Brussels are preparing for a visit by Wang, the former Chinese foreign minister who has been promoted into the 24-person Politburo, the Communist Party’s ruling body, to oversee foreign affairs.
But Wang faces an uphill struggle in convincing Europe of a shift in China’s diplomatic settings. The EU is angered by Xi’s close relationship with Moscow despite Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In response, European leaders have started exploring the diversification of sources of key imports, including those from China.
In conversations with their European counterparts, Beijing officials and diplomats have adopted the tactic of highlightingrecent transatlantic disputes to try to persuade the Europeans that the U.S. — even after the Donald Trump era — remains an untrustworthy ally.
“They like to repeat the U.S. ‘gains’ in the Russian war against Ukraine, as well as the IRA,” another European official said, referring to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which is seen by many Europeans as a protectionist policy unfavorable to EU businesses. China claims that the U.S. military-industrial complex stands to gain from the war, while Europe suffers more from the energy crisis than the U.S.
Beijing is also reaching out to traditional allies in the U.S. business community to amplify its more benign messaging. Wang sat down in Beijing last month with John Thornton, former Goldman Sachs president and the current executive chair of Barrick Gold Corporation. That meeting signaled that “China is open to dialogue with the United States at all levels,” current Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang tweeted.
China’s former Foreign Minister Wang Yi addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly | Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images
Similar outreach to the European business community may fall flat.
“China heavily subsidizes its industry and restricts access to its market for EU companies,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. “We need to focus on de-risking rather than decoupling. This means using all our tools to deal with unfair practices.”
But Beijing will hope that persisting with the warmer rhetoric will pay off even if the fundamentals don’t change.
“There are elements of Wall Street and certain constituencies in the U.S. government that are extremely receptive to talk about stability and predictability in the U.S.-China relationship after a very volatile two years,” said Singleton from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “But it’s an illusion.”
Matt Kaminski contributed reporting from Davos, Switzerland.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
For billions of people across Asia and in Asian diaspora communities around the world, this weekend marks the beginning of the lunar new year celebrations, a two-week holiday marking the end of the Zodiac year of the Tiger, and ushering in the Year of the Rabbit – or Cat, if you are in Vietnam. For the first few days commercial activity slows or stops, as people gather with their families. For many migrant workers in China, it is often the only time of the year they can return to home towns. The holiday is steeped in tradition, with a focus on family, food, reflection and looking forward.
MALAYSIA
Daniel Lee Lih Wei, a 37-year old father of two who oversees research at Kuala Lumpur’s Sunway University and lives in the suburban town of Klang. Photograph: Vignes Balasingam/The Guardian
As a Chinese-Malaysian, lunar new year is all about passing the Chinese traditions on to the next generation, says Daniel Lee Lih Wei, a 37-year-old father of two who oversees research at Kuala Lumpur’s Sunway University and lives in the suburban town of Klang.
“I want my children to learn and experience the different and the rich culture and heritage we have and how that can be translated into their own experiences throughout their life’s journey,” he explains. “It’s about giving them that exposure and the memories that I used to have as a child.”
With that in mind, Lee Lih Wei says that the key things for his children, aged four and one, will be playing with the firecrackers, enjoying cookies and watching traditional lion dances. In elaborate and brightly coloured costumes, performances by lion dancers across the country are common during the build-up to the new year and are said to signify luck and prosperity.
Taking a week off work, Lee Lih Wei says his family will dress in coordinated outfits of varying shades of red as they reunite with family over two days. While tradition dictates that the male side of the family is visited on the eve of the lunar new year, Lee Lih Wei says modernisation means they’ll visit his wife’s family for lunch and his own for dinner.
CHINA
Last year Wen Xu wasn’t able to get to her home town in a small Anhui county, because of Covid restrictions. This time, the 26-year-old will travel from Hong Kong, where she recently moved to work as a reporter. Even two months ago this wouldn’t have been possible, but since China’s government ended its zero-Covid policy in December, Xu is among the hundreds of millions of Chinese able to once again make the journey home.
“This year for New Year’s Eve, my uncle, aunt, and cousin will come to visit us from a town nearby,” she says. “We will have a big reunion dinner with traditional family dishes such as steamed pork with rice flour and bone broth together.”
A traditional pastry made of donkey hide gelatin, or ejiao, and jujube, walnut, rose and sesame. Photograph: Ma Li/Getty Images/iStockphoto
The week will be one of food and relaxation, reading new books and catching up with a cousin who has returned from Canada. She also plans to film her mother cooking a traditional Chinese health food, ejiao.
Growing up, Xu and her cousin would excitedly finish their new year’s meal and then rush upstairs together, to count the money they had received in red packets as traditional gifts from their elder relatives. “ Even now we are grown, my cousin and I still receive red-pocket money,” she says.
There’s some sadness this year, Xu adds, as her grandfather remains ill after Covid, and can’t join them for dinner. “He has to stay with an oxygen machine in his room on the third floor.”
The Year of the Tiger was great professionally for Xu, “but not so much relationship-wise”.
“My hope for next year is to find a partner who can experience things with me, be there for each other, and support each other.”
VIETNAM
Thanh Van, 24, a hotel receptionist poses for photos in front of a restaurant near her house in Ninh Binh, Vietnam. Photograph: Linh Pham for The Guardian
“Like many Vietnamese families, we cook, we spend time thinking about the day and the year,” says Thanh Van, a 24-year-old hotel receptionist who lives in the northern city of Ninh Binh with her parents and younger sister. Known locally as Tet Nguyen Dan, or Tet, lunar new year is the most important occasion to Vietnamese people, including her family, she adds.
In the days beforehand, the family will spend hours in the kitchen making 12 chung cakes, a traditional new year dessert, which Van says symbolises the earth and “contains all the unique ingredients of the Vietnamese”, such as rice, pork, mung beans and banana. These are then gifted to family and friends alongside “lucky money”. Coveted in a red pocket, it is also a Vietnamese custom, she says, to gift money to family members in an act that ushers in luck for the year ahead. “It’s not important how much. It just means you received something lucky.”
The festivities will all culminate, she says, on New Year’s Eve when Van plans to watch the fireworks before visiting family members on New Year’s Day. “Vietnamese people believe what they do on the first day of the new year will affect the rest therefore they pay great attention to every word they say and everything they do,” she says.
TAIWAN
Stacy Liu, 32, is heading to her home town in Taoyuan, northern Taiwan, on Friday. The Taipei resident usually goes home for a whole week, to spend quality time with her family and catch up with childhood friends who are also back for the holiday.
The traditional Chinese food Fo Tiao Qiang. Photograph: insjoy/Getty Images/iStockphoto
“The first three days of lunar new year are the biggest and the most important days and you want to spend them with your family,” she says. When she was younger they would visit her father’s side of the family first, and then go to her maternal grandmother’s house. “The second day is traditionally when the married daughter goes back to her home,” she says. “My grandma is a very traditional woman so we could only go back to her house on that day – otherwise apparently it’s going to bring bad luck.”
But in recent years they have kept it small, with just Liu, her two younger sisters and their partners gathering at their parents’ home. “I find that more and more families are not doing the most traditional way with all the relatives coming home,” she says.
On New Year’s Eve the family will stay in, cooking traditional dishes like “Buddha jumps over the wall”, chicken soup, braised fish, and mustard greens.
“The leftovers from New Year’s Eve are enough for the next two days of dinner, but for lunch we’ll go out to a nicer restaurant,” she says. “We made a reservation about a month ago. You need to book ahead for New Year.”
Liu and her family will stay home and eat plenty, hike in the nearby mountains and play mahjong. She hopes this year will see the end of Covid worries, and the chance to build her Mandarin-tutoring business so she can work remotely and travel.
SINGAPORE
Chua Yiying Charmaine at Sago street in Singapore. Photograph: Amrita Chandradas/The Guardian
For Chua Yiying Charmaine, a 21-year-old real estate student at the National University of Singapore, lunar new year means leaving campus to travel home to the east of Singapore. Here, she’ll reunite with her parents, younger brother and sister for what she calls a “typical” celebration.
“Most Singaporean Chinese families prioritise the reunion dinner,” she explains. This is a large gathering of extended family the night before lunar new year. “I usually don’t get to spend that much time with my family any more because of work and school so I think this year will be especially nice.”
While it’s yet to be decided whether the festivities will take place at her parents’ or grandmother’s house, either way, Charmaine says she’ll begin cooking with her grandmother around 4pm, making traditional dishes such as bakwa, salty-sweet dried meat, and lo hei, a Cantonese-style raw fish salad. “Usually people buy it because it’s very tedious to make … but my family likes to make it from scratch.”
The few days prior will be packed, she says, with visits to loved ones; a pair of oranges in hand to offer as a traditional token. “I enjoy it because it’s a type of celebration, and I think it’s always good to have that kind of festivity in your life. It helps everybody loosen up a little bit,” Charmaine says.
HONG KONG
Tabitha Mui’s favourite childhood memories of lunar new year are visiting relatives and receiving “lucky money” in lai see (red packets) and “endless amounts of sweets and coin chocolates”.
Traditional Chinese poon choi reunion dinner Photograph: AsiaVision/Getty Images
On New Year’s Eve, the extended family would gather together and share traditional dishes like braised Chinese mushrooms with fat choy (black moss seaweed), chicken, fish, and the Hakka-style poon choi (one bowl feast).
“The best things for kids were the long holidays and we wore Chinese costumes to school for new year parties,” she recalls.
“Now that I’m married, the most important thing is to have a New Year’s Eve reunion dinner with the older generation in our family. Both my husband and I come from big families so we’ll be busy. I’ll prepare presents for the older relatives and lai see money for the young ones.”
Hong Kong, like many parts of east Asia, were among the last to lift pandemic border restrictions and reopen for travellers. It makes Mui a little wary, now that visitors will be returning to the city. “I hope everyone in my family will stay healthy,” she says. “We’ll have to be cautious.”
“As for my hope for the Year of the Rabbit – I hope my work will be smooth, and I hope for world peace.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
