China’s state press gushed over Beijing’s hosting of the Olympic Games yesterday, calling it a watershed event that should make the world look on China with newfound respect.
“Through the Beijing Games’ flawless organization, brilliant sporting performances and friendly atmosphere, an image of an entirely new great country appeared before the world,” the popular Beijing Youth Daily said.
“Even though the Beijing Games have ended, China’s opening up and exchanges with the world will not cease and the Chinese people’s participation in the development and improvement of mankind will not change,” it said.
The English-language China Daily said the Games marked the pinnacle of China’s gradual re-engagement with the world that began 30 years ago under former leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
“The Games was a historic climax of three decades of China opening to the world. It was also a moment for the world to take a new look at China,” it said.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) said yesterday China had failed to win any medals in the human rights department during the Beijing Olympics, adding that the Chinese government had “blatantly and successfully” used the Games to realize its political goals.
“Yet the carefully orchestrated facade could not conceal a police state that tramples on human rights,” HRIC executive director Sharon Hom said.
UIGHURS
Uighur activists said yesterday that Chinese security forces had detained 500 members of the ethnic Uighur minority in the Xinjiang region over the past two weeks.
More than 100 people were arrested in the desert town of Kashgar alone, the exiled Uyghur World Congress said.
Families of arrested individuals were not informed about their relatives’ whereabouts, the congress said. “Vanishing” people were nothing unusual in Uighur territories, however, as arbitrary arrests by the Chinese army, police and intelligence services are common.
DEPORTED
A British woman and a German man who took part in a protest during the Olympic Games were deported yesterday, officials said, hours after eight American activists were sent home during the closing ceremony.
Mandie McKeown and Florien Norbu Gyanatshang were put on flights to Frankfurt in the morning, said officials from the British embassy in Beijing and the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.
Also See: London’s Olympic challenge remains huge
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique