President Xi Jinping greets Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday. Xi said the nations should deepen cooperation.[Photo/Xinhua] China will continue helping Myanmar achieve peace, President Xi Jinping told Myanmar's State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday as the neighboring nation's peace efforts are gaining momentum. China is willing to continue to provide necessary assistance for Myanmar's internal peace process, Xi said, according to a news release issued by the Chinese government. The two sides should make joint efforts to protect security and stability at the China-Myanmar border, Xi told Suu Kyi, according to the news release. Suu Kyi said Myanmar appreciates China's support and help, and expects to work with China to maintain peace and stability in the border area. Myanmar's peace process is heading for the second meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference slated for May 24, an inclusive dialogue designed to open to all ethnic armed groups. The latest meeting of the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee, chaired by Suu Kyi last week, agreed on the unprecedented step of allowing regional or state governments to come up with their own constitutions and pass their own laws, achieving a breakthrough in the political dialogue between the government and armed groups. Regional constitutions, however, would not be allowed to contradict the country's overall Constitution, ethnic leaders said. Xi said on Tuesday that China and Myanmar share widespread mutual strategic interests. He stressed that the two sides should maintain high-level exchanges and strengthen strategic communication. Xi said that China and Myanmar should deepen pragmatic cooperation and push forward smooth implementation of key cooperation projects and cooperation on economic corridor plans, infrastructure and economic cooperation zones. The two nations should also expand civilian exchanges and deepen cooperation in areas including tourism, culture and media, and forge solid public opinion support for friendly ties, the president said. China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Myanmar under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative to increase mutual development and bring more tangible benefits to the two peoples, he said. Suu Kyi congratulated Xi for the success and fruitful results of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. The initiative will bring peace, reconciliation and prosperity to the region and the world, she said. She said that her country attaches great importance to deepening relations with China. Premier Li Keqiang also met Suu Kyi earlier on Tuesday. They witnessed the signing of several cooperation documents, including a memorandum of understanding on establishing the border economic and technology cooperation zone. Xinhua and Zhang Yue contributed to the story. festival braceletsmake your own silicone braceletsrubber arm bands
Instructors provide door-to-door guidance to protect environment HANGZHOU - Starting in 2016, Chen Xuefen, a garbage-sorting instructor in Zhejiang province, has been "talking trash" with the help of her smartphone. She scans the QR code on any garbage bag in a trash can and immediately knows who threw it away. "We get free garbage bags from our community committee. Each household is given bags with a different QR code," Chen said. If residents don't sort the waste correctly, instructors come to their homes and show them how to do it properly. "In the past, we had no idea who had thrown what away," Chen said. Chen is one of the hundreds of garbage-sorting instructors in Huachuan community, where she and another 10,000-plus residents live. As volunteers, the instructors are meant to help residents manage their trash, especially in the kitchen, which accounts for 50 percent of all household waste. "In Huachuan, more than 90 percent of residents currently know how to sort household waste," Chen said. Built in the 1980s, Huachuan generates about 1,500 liters of garbage a day, which was previously dumped and taken away, and then burned or buried. Though Zhejiang introduced garbage sorting in 2010, progress was initially less than satisfactory. Since 2012, Huachuan's public trash bins have been divided by "kitchen waste", "recyclables", "hazardous waste" and "other". Every year, the community spends about 300,000 yuan ($45,000) on bins and bags to encourage residents to separate their own waste. In 2016, the bags with QR codes appeared. Yu Fuling, Huachuan's Party secretary, said sorting household waste is of great importance. "If trash is not sorted, waste cannot be fully reused or recycled, and the disposal process is harder," Yu said. According to Yu, workers in Huachuan create brochures and give lectures on how to sort garbage, and they organize volunteers to provide door-to-door guidance. Currently, the rate of household garbage sorting in Huachuan is about 70 percent, Yu said. In Zhejiang, 11 cities have run waste-sorting campaigns for households, and the disposal rate of harmless urban household waste has reached 99.3 percent. The province has 110 disposal facilities for household waste and more than 1,800 garbage transfer stations. Another 16 disposal facilities are under construction and will be operational by the end of this year, increasing the province's garbage disposal capacity to 70,000 tons per day. Xinhua
