US President George W. Bush said yesterday he had used talks with Chinese leaders during the Olympic Games to press them to use their influence with Sudan to help end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
Wrapping up his Olympics tour, Bush said that in Sunday’s meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and other officials he raised US concerns, including human rights and religious freedoms in China and the situation in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.
“My attitude is if you’ve got relations with [Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir], think about helping to solve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur,” Bush said in an interview with NBC Sports. “That was my message to the Chinese government.”
Support for Sudan — China is a key investor in its oil industry and Khartoum’s biggest arms supplier — has been among the sources of international criticism of Beijing as the world’s spotlight has fallen on it for the Olympic games.
Bush has denounced the Sudanese government for its policies in the Darfur region, where conflict has taken some 200,000 lives and displaced some 2.5 million people since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.
Bush has called it genocide, a charge the Sudanese government has rejected.
The US protested to China over its decision before the Games’ opening ceremonies to revoke the visa of Olympic gold medallist Joey Cheek, an activist for Darfur.
DESPERATE ACT
State media quoted police as saying that the man who murdered an American tourist in Beijing before throwing himself off a tower acted out of despair over failures in his life.
Tang Yongming, 47, stabbed Todd Bachman — the father-in-law of US Olympic volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon — to death in Beijing on Saturday in an attack that also left his wife, Barbara, seriously injured.
Police in his hometown of Hangzhou in east China, said Tang “took his anger out on society” in an example of “individual, extreme behavior,” Xinhua news agency said late on Sunday.
Tang had two failed marriages and his 21-year-old son was sentenced to six months in prison for theft earlier this year, the news agency said.
STILL MISSING
Meanwhile, a Christian activist who was detained on his way to a church service attended by Bush on Sunday has not returned home, his brother said yesterday.
Hua Huilin said he and his brother, Hua Huiqi, a member of Beijing’s underground Christian church, were stopped by security agents in two black cars on Sunday while they were cycling to the Kuan Jie Protestant Church around dawn.
The pair was taken away in separate cars and Hua Huilin said he was released a few hours later. He said his brother, however, remained missing.
“We’re so worried,” Hua Huilin said by telephone yesterday.
A man who answered the telephone at the spokesman’s office of
the Beijing Public Security Bureau said yesterday officials there were trying to find out what happened and would only comment when they had “an accurate answer.”
‘TERRORISTS’
Two women were among a squad of assailants that hurled homemade bombs at government buildings and police this week in violence that left 12 people dead in a Muslim region of China, officials said yesterday.
Police were still investigating whether the attackers belonged to a group allegedly linked to al-Qaeda that has threatened to disrupt the Games.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary