Xi’an to join China’s visa waiver scheme

The capital of Shaanxi province, which is home to the world famous Terracotta Warriors, will allow passengers transiting through Xi’an Xianyang International Airport to stay in the city for three days without obtaining a visa prior to arrival, as long as they have an onward ticket for a flight to a third destination, departing within 72 hours of their arrival.

The scheme is available to citizens of 45 countries, including the all EU member states, the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Brunei, Russia, Ukraine, Qatar and the UAE.

It will be useful to also note that while Modi was facing an American and European winter over the past decade, the governments of Asian nations were sowing seeds of cooperation with him. In the past decade, Modi has visited China and Japan, their officials have been visiting Gujarat, and these governments have encouraged state-supported investments in Gujarat. Of course there have been American investments also in Gujarat – but there has been no American political support for these private investments.

In fact another question lurking in the background is whether Modi’s foreign economic policy will have a soft-leaning towards Asia, as compared to the U.S.? The short space in this article does not allow a discussion on that, and is the subject of another article.

Xi’an becomes the ninth Chinese city to offer the service, following Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming, Chongqing, Dalian and Shenyang.

Shaanxi province welcomed 285 million tourists in 2013, 797,000 of whom entered through Xianyang Airport. The new policy is expected to come into force in the next two months.

Visa waiver boosts Beijing visits

Beijing saw nearly double the number of travelers that benefited from the capital's 72-hour visa waiver policy in January compared with the same period last year, authorities said on Tuesday.

The city received 1,746 transit passengers in January at Beijing Capital International Airport China Crew Visa application formwho benefitted from the waiver policy, which allows a visitor with an airline ticket to stay 72 hours without a visa. The jump represented a year-on-year increase of 184.8 percent, according to the Beijing Tourism Development Commission.

The capital approved the 72-hour visa waiver for people from 45 countries on Jan 1, 2013, to boost the city's inbound tourism. The commission said the policy has attracted more international tourists to the Chinese capital this year.

Commission officials also announced they are considering a tax refund program to attract more overseas tourists. The program would allow foreign visitors to claim tax refunds at shopping malls in the city.

City officials said they are working to make the visa application process easier for foreigners and create more customized tour packages, China Business Visa applicationincluding exclusive discounts at the international airport and for buses that will take tourists from the airport to hotels and attractions.

It is also seeking alliances with other Chinese cities that have already implemented visa waiver policies, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing, to market tourism in China to the world.

Dai Bin, professor of tourism at Beijing International Studies University, said the policy will help increase spending by overseas visitors.

According to the Beijing Port Office, the international airport received more than 7.06 million visits in January, a year-on-year increase of 9.2 percent.

Indian diplomat who was strip-searched leaves US

An Indian diplomat accused of lying about how much she paid her housekeeper left the United States after she was indicted on two criminal charges and Indian authorities refused to waive her immunity, authorities said. Devyani Khobragade, who had been strip-searched when arrested, left the country by plane Thursday night after being charged by a federal grand jury with visa fraud and making false statements in a case that has triggered an outcry in India, a senior U.S. official said. She's accused of fraudulently obtaining a work visa for her New York housekeeper. A U.S. government official in Washington who wasn't authorized to speak about the case publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity said the U.S. accepted India's request to accredit her to the United Nations, which confers broader immunity than what she enjoyed as a consular official. It would be almost unprecedented for the U.S. to deny such a request unless the diplomat was a national security risk. The United States asked the government of India to waive the immunity, but the Indians refused, so the U.S. then "requested her departure" from the country, the official said. At a court hearing late Thursday involving only lawyers in the case, U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin was told by Khobragade's lawyer, Daniel Arshack, that he had told Khobragade not to board a flight Thursday afternoon until he had informed the judge presiding over her case that she has diplomatic immunity and had been ordered by the Department of State to leave the country. The judge said it seemed odd that bail conditions continued to contain language that Khobragade could not leave New York when the Department of State had ordered her to do so. "If she wants to go from India to China or something, it is not anybody's business right now. To say you may not travel outside the Southern District is kind of silly at this point," the judge said. "They have ordered her out and agreed she has diplomatic immunity now." The judge said Khobragade "is permitted to obey the order of the State Department without any adverse consequence to her and her sureties," though she said Khobragade could be arrested and forced to answer the indictment if she returned to the United States without diplomatic immunity. Arshack said Khobragade, whose nighttime flight from Kennedy Airport was delayed a couple of hours before finally taking off, was "pleased to be returning to her country."

EAC Citizens Thrilled to Use ID's At Border

Crossing borders of Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya by the nations' citizens is set to increase as the use of national identity cards and other agreed national documents, including voter's card and student's identity cards, came into force yesterday. The project, to be implemented under a tripartite arrangement, was agreed upon during a summit between the three Heads of State in Uganda in June last year. The leaders agreed to establish a single tourist visa, a single customs territory-launched last year-as well as fast track a joint railway line project, oil pipeline, and adopt national identity cards as travel documents. The ID initiative is meant to facilitate free movement of people within the region as stipulated in the East African Common Market protocol, the second stage of the integration process. A spot visit of the Rwanda-Uganda borders at Gatuna by The New Times showed that the rollout of the new initiative was long over due. Although it was New Year's public holiday, lines formed at the migration offices with several Rwandans using their identity cards to cross to Uganda. The same scenario transpired on Ugandan side of the border. "I'm going to Kabale District in Uganda to visit my friends. I just heard that today people will start crossing the border with identity cards; I don't have a passport so I had to utilise this opportunity," Theoneste Ndindiriyimana, from Gicumbi District, said at Gatuna border. Boniface Tumwijukye, a Ugandan from Ntungamo District, who crossed to Rwanda using his ID, said it would serve citizens more if the project was extended to Burundi and Tanzania as well. "I'm going to Cyangugu for adult English teaching; it's a good process because you don't have to spend much time at the border. However, to make it fully beneficial it needs to be extended to other countries to help us move in all East African countries freely," the teacher said. Currently, only Rwandans and Kenyans have national identity cards, meaning Ugandans will be using voter's cards until the country issues IDs to its citizens. At Kigali International Airport, all systems were set to receive Kenyans and Ugandans using identity cards or voter's cards as travel documents and also to allow Rwandans flying out to the two destinations to use the same document. However, by the time this paper visited the immigration offices at the airport, (at around 5pm) there had not been a single traveller who had used the new system. But the officer in charge of immigration at the airport, Charles Nkubito, confirmed that all systems were set and immigration staff notified on the new procedures. "The security staff and other personnel are well aware of the new system and will allow Rwandans to check in with their identity cards and also to receive Kenyan and Ugandan visitors using the arrangement. But most of our travellers are still using passports," he said.

We understand that getting a US visa

We understand that getting a US visa is a hurdle. But we are working on fixing the problem. President Obama recognizes that tourism from emerging markets such as India, Brazil and China plays an important role and, therefore, the visa regime should be improved. In India, the wait time has already gone down for US visas. Also for renewal of visas one doesn't need to go for an interview, now. So we are taking gradual steps to make the process simpler. I am sure there will be some impact on corporate travel. However, this is only anecdotal right now. The figures for 2013 will reflect if there is a significant dip in travel growth from India.

Yesterday, I wrote about Janis Shinwari, an Afghan who served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army for seven years, bravely and honorably, saving the lives of several American soldiers, including Lieutenant now Captain Matt Zeller. I heard about Shinwari and Zeller through Becca Heller of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project. There are thousands of cases of Iraqis and Afghans who risked their lives for the U.S., only to have their chance at an American visa endlessly delayed or denied.

Shinwari and Zeller got nowhere when they tried to find out who or what had destroyed his hopes. It's a maddening feature of these cases that life-changing determinations are made by unknown officials operating under the cloak of the empty but omnipotent phrase "national security." No one is even sure which agency of the U.S. government has made the decision. Afghans and Iraqis are left to face death threats and despair in their own country without a clue as to the reason they've been left behind. It's a little like being arrested and imprisoned without knowing the charge or ever appearing before a judge.

UK govt still undecided

Contrary to speculations that November 2013 is the date the new UK visa bond of ￡3,000 would take off, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Andrew Pocock, weekend, said his government was yet to take a decision on whether to go ahead with the policy or not.Ambassador Pocock, in a chat with Vanguard in Abuja, insisted that even if his government decided to implement the visa cash bond policy, only a fraction of 150,000 Nigerians granted travel visa annually would be subjected to the policy.

Pocock said: "We don't know, first of all, whether this will happen at all, but if 150,000 Nigerians travel to the UK every year, this scheme will probably only affect a couple of hundreds, which is a very small proportion of 150,000.   So it's not a catastrophe coming down the road."He noted that much of the uproar about the proposal was based on a misunderstanding of what the scheme was all about.He said: "What I said to your foreign minister is that as soon as I know what has been decided in London, I will tell the Nigerian government formally and we will tell the people of this country.

"But we are a long way away from that and we know what the Nigerian government probably thinks about this. We have passed those feelings back to the government in London, and they are taking it into consideration."On the speculation that November has been fixed for the take off of the policy, he said "Let me say a number of things, I have said this in public and am happy to say it again. First of all, there is no policy, it is simply something that is being discussed in the UK .

An Abbott government would also strengthen Australia's opposition

An Abbott government would immediately direct that Israel be added to the list of nations whose citizens can access fast-track electronic visas for short-term visits to Australia.Under a range of new policies - which are being directed by Mr Abbott with broad support within the opposition - the Coalition would seek to ban the Islamist extremist organisation Hizb Ut-Tahrir and prevent foreign members of the group coming to Australia to promote extremism.The Coalition will also seek fresh advice from ASIO on the question of banning the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Only the militant wings of these groups are currently banned in Australia, while the US, Canada and a number of Western nations have banned the entire organisations.Coalition policy documents draw attention to the fact that the US and Canada have banned more than twice as many terrorist organisations as Australia has.The Coalition plans to make it more difficult for "preachers of hate" to visit Australia. It believes the federal government has the power to stop such visits on character grounds and should do so much more frequently.

An Abbott government would also strengthen Australia's opposition to the BDS campaign by committing to a government-wide policy that prevents additional grants of taxpayers' funds to individuals and organisations that actively support the BDS campaign. The moves are widely supported in the Coalition but also reflect Mr Abbott's long-standing personal commitment to supporting Israel.He travelled independently to Israel as a young man and visited as an opposition MP before he became Liberal leader.