TAIPEI: Taiwan defense ministry said on Thursday it was closely watching Chinese military movements after a surge in warplanes joined drills with China’s Shandong aircraft carrier in the Pacific.
The Chinese military exercises coincide with a NATO summit in Washington where a draft communique says China has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to Europe and to security.
The Chinese carrier the Shandong passed close to the Philippines on its way to the Pacific exercises, Taiwan’s defense minister said on Wednesday.
In its daily update on Chinese military activity over the past 24 and released on Thursday morning, Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had detected 66 Chinese military aircraft operating around the island.
Of those, 39 passed to the south and southeast of Taiwan, the ministry said, having previously said it had detected 36 aircraft heading to the Western Pacific to carry out drills with the Chinese aircraft carrier the Shandong.
Taiwan’s defense ministry released two pictures, a grainy black and white one of a Chinese J-16 fighter and a color one of a nuclear-capable H-6 bomber, which it said were taken recently, but did not say exactly where or when.
“The military has a detailed grasp of the activities in the seas and waters around the Taiwan Strait, including of the Chinese communists aircraft and ships,” ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said in a statement, adding that included those aircraft and ships carrying out drills with the Shandong.
Taiwan’s forces had tracked the two Chinese warplanes photographed, he said.
China’s defense ministry has not responded to requests for comment on the Shandong’s activities.
Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military activity over the past four years as Beijing seeks to pressure the democratically governed island which rejects China’s sovereignty claims.
A spokesperson for the Chinese mission to the European Union said the NATO summit’s draft declaration is full of “belligerent rhetoric,” and the China-related content has provocations, “lies, incitement and smears.”
Ahead of the summit, Taiwan’s foreign ministry told Reuters it “welcomes NATO’s continuous increase in attention to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region in recent years, and its active strengthening of exchanges and interactions with countries in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Taiwan is not the only hot spot security issue involving China — and Russia — in the region.
Japan’s Self Defense Forces in a statement said it had tracked two Russian frigates on Wednesday passing between two of its islands at the western end of its Okinawa chain close to Taiwan heading southwest toward the Pacific Ocean.
China and the Philippines are locked in a confrontation in the disputed South China Sea and their encounters have grown more tense as Beijing presses its claims to shoals in waters that Manila says are well within its exclusive economic zone.
US allies Australia and Japan have been stepping up their military activities too.
The Philippines Air Force arrived in northern Australia on Wednesday on its first overseas deployment in six decades for combat practice alongside US and Australian fighter jets.
A Japanese navy destroyer also made a rare entry into China’s territorial waters near Taiwan earlier this month without notifying China and sparking “serious concerns” from Beijing, Japanese media outlets reported late on Wednesday.
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Taiwan monitors surge in Chinese military activity as Beijing’s carrier exercises in Pacific
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Taiwan monitors surge in Chinese military activity as Beijing’s carrier exercises in Pacific
- The Chinese military exercises coincide with a NATO summit in Washington
- The Chinese carrier the Shandong passed close to the Philippines on its way to the Pacific exercises
Afghan polio survivor’s sock factory provides hope by employing disabled workers
HERAT: In a tiny room in the center of Herat, Afghanistan’s westernmost city, Shahabuddin uses his hands to propel himself along the floor to a freshly-made pile of socks waiting to be sorted and packaged.
A double amputee since a roadside bomb took both his legs a decade ago, when Afghanistan was mired in conflict between US-led forces and Taliban insurgents, the 36-year-old father of four had struggled to find work. Unemployed for the last decade, he had been forced to rely on relatives for his family’s survival.
But a new sock production workshop in Herat employing only disabled workers has given him new hope.
“I became disabled due to the explosion. Both my legs were amputated,” Shahabuddin, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, said during a brief pause in his work in early December. “Now I work here in a sock factory, and I am very happy that I have been given a job here.”
The workshop is the brainchild of Mohammad Amiri, 35, a former grocery shop worker who started the business about a month ago. Amiri, himself disabled by childhood polio, wanted to create jobs and help provide income for other people with disabilities, particularly as many of them were injured during the conflict and have no other means of income.
He teamed up with another polio survivor to start the sock factory with a workforce of men disabled either through traumatic injuries or because of congenital issues or other reasons. They make four types of socks: long and short, for winter and summer.
“The factory, which is funded and supported by people with disabilities, began operations last month and currently employs around 50 people with disabilities,” Amiri said. “They are busy in the production, packaging and sale of socks in the city.”
A combination of decades of conflict, a weak health care system and struggling economy have contributed to high levels of disability in Afghanistan. Data from a 2019 Model Disability Survey conducted by The Asia Foundation nonprofit organization indicates that nearly 25 percent of adults live with a mild disability, while 40 percent have moderate and about 14 percent have severe disabilities.
“These figures compel us to act with greater urgency and commitment,” the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement released on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 3, quoting the same figures. “Persons with disabilities must not be treated as an afterthought; they must be fully integrated into every stage of planning, decision-making, and service delivery.”
Meanwhile, Afghanistan is one of only two countries — along with neighboring Pakistan — where wild poliovirus remains endemic. The infectious disease can cause flu-like symptoms, but can also cause severe reactions, including paralysis, disability and death.
The Afghan Ministry of Martyrs and Disabled Affairs says 189,635 disabled people across the country are registered and receiving financial support from the government.
Amiri said his business faces serious competition from cheap imports of textiles, and expressed the hope that the government would stop imports from abroad. He has hopes of getting a contract to provide the Afghan security forces with socks, and wants to expand his workforce to 2,000 people.
His current employees include former refugees who have recently returned to Afghanistan after spending years abroad.
One such man is Mohammad Arif Jafari, 40, an economics graduate and polio survivor who lived in Iran for years. Returning to Afghanistan has been hard, he said.
“I suffered a lot due to unemployment. But fortunately, now I produce several types of socks,” he said while selling his wares from a stall on the streets of Herat. “I am happy that I am working here and earning an income.”
A double amputee since a roadside bomb took both his legs a decade ago, when Afghanistan was mired in conflict between US-led forces and Taliban insurgents, the 36-year-old father of four had struggled to find work. Unemployed for the last decade, he had been forced to rely on relatives for his family’s survival.
But a new sock production workshop in Herat employing only disabled workers has given him new hope.
“I became disabled due to the explosion. Both my legs were amputated,” Shahabuddin, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, said during a brief pause in his work in early December. “Now I work here in a sock factory, and I am very happy that I have been given a job here.”
The workshop is the brainchild of Mohammad Amiri, 35, a former grocery shop worker who started the business about a month ago. Amiri, himself disabled by childhood polio, wanted to create jobs and help provide income for other people with disabilities, particularly as many of them were injured during the conflict and have no other means of income.
He teamed up with another polio survivor to start the sock factory with a workforce of men disabled either through traumatic injuries or because of congenital issues or other reasons. They make four types of socks: long and short, for winter and summer.
“The factory, which is funded and supported by people with disabilities, began operations last month and currently employs around 50 people with disabilities,” Amiri said. “They are busy in the production, packaging and sale of socks in the city.”
A combination of decades of conflict, a weak health care system and struggling economy have contributed to high levels of disability in Afghanistan. Data from a 2019 Model Disability Survey conducted by The Asia Foundation nonprofit organization indicates that nearly 25 percent of adults live with a mild disability, while 40 percent have moderate and about 14 percent have severe disabilities.
“These figures compel us to act with greater urgency and commitment,” the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement released on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 3, quoting the same figures. “Persons with disabilities must not be treated as an afterthought; they must be fully integrated into every stage of planning, decision-making, and service delivery.”
Meanwhile, Afghanistan is one of only two countries — along with neighboring Pakistan — where wild poliovirus remains endemic. The infectious disease can cause flu-like symptoms, but can also cause severe reactions, including paralysis, disability and death.
The Afghan Ministry of Martyrs and Disabled Affairs says 189,635 disabled people across the country are registered and receiving financial support from the government.
Amiri said his business faces serious competition from cheap imports of textiles, and expressed the hope that the government would stop imports from abroad. He has hopes of getting a contract to provide the Afghan security forces with socks, and wants to expand his workforce to 2,000 people.
His current employees include former refugees who have recently returned to Afghanistan after spending years abroad.
One such man is Mohammad Arif Jafari, 40, an economics graduate and polio survivor who lived in Iran for years. Returning to Afghanistan has been hard, he said.
“I suffered a lot due to unemployment. But fortunately, now I produce several types of socks,” he said while selling his wares from a stall on the streets of Herat. “I am happy that I am working here and earning an income.”
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