China celebrated the arrival of the Olympic flame on domestic soil as it arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday. At least, one torch arrived. The other is believed to be somewhere on Mount Everest, ready for its impressive if contentious ascent of the world’s highest mountain.
Western reporters assigned to follow the Everest flame complained that no one would tell them where it was and one Chinese newspaper described the lack of information as a “mysterious veil that has surrounded base camp.”
The Olympic flame split in Beijing last month, with the main torch heading to Europe, the US and Asia on its protest-marked world tour.
Meanwhile, the second was taken to Tibet where a mountaineering team had gathered for the ambitious feat. The flame will be carried in a lantern, allowing a carefully designed torch using special fuel to be lit in the thin air of the summit.
SPECULATION
Some had speculated that the team hoped to make the ascent yesterday — exactly 100 days before the Olympics and amid celebrations in Beijing.
Yan Xingguo, the team’s meteorologist, said: “It’s certainly not possible in the next three days because there is wind above 30 meters a second ... according to our experience, we can scale the summit when the wind is 20 meters a second.”
State-run broadcaster CCTV reported mountaineers had completed the setup of a staging point at 8,300m for the final assault on the 8,850m summit.
Reporters said there was no word on the location of the torch.
One worker at base camp told Reuters that the climbers and flame left on Tuesday. Officials dismissed a similar report on a Chinese Web site as “irresponsible and misleading.”
ASCENT
“Having invited us here to cover the ascent of the flame, the Chinese appear to have taken fright,” the BBC’s Jonah Fisher complained in a blog.
“It now seems that they only want us to report the victorious summit moment ... the only fact we possess is that the flame is somewhere in the area,” he wrote.
There are reports of a near-blackout of communications on the Nepalese side of Everest, where a US mountaineer was caught with a “Free Tibet” banner. William Brant Holland was deported.
Tibetan support groups claim that taking the flame up Everest — and bringing it through Tibet in the relay — is provocative.
The main torch will begin the domestic leg of its journey in Hong Kong today.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS