The Olympic torch’s trip through Tibet next month will be shortened, Beijing Games organizers said yesterday, in a move that could minimize any outcry over the controversial relay leg.
The torch’s passage through Tibet will be cut from three days to just one as part of route changes made because of China’s earthquake, an official with the Beijing Games organizers said.
“The change is due to the Sichuan earthquake’s impact on the rest of the relay. Because of this, the sacred flame will only pass through [the Tibetan capital] Lhasa for one day,” said Li Lizhi, an information officer with the Beijing Olympics.
“It will probably be in Lhasa on June 18 but we are waiting to confirm that,” she said.
The Olympic torch had been scheduled to transit a district south of Lhasa on June 19 before spending the following two days in the Tibetan capital, where fierce rioting against Chinese rule erupted in March.
The protests in March revealed deep anger against China’s control of the devoutly Buddhist region, and overseas pro-Tibet activists have denounced the Tibet leg — which was planned well before the unrest — as a further snub to Tibetans and world opinion.
The change is the latest made after tens of thousands of people were killed in the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan Province.
China called three days of national mourning last week, during which the torch relay was halted, and has made various adjustments to make up for those lost days.
The torch’s relay is the longest and most ambitious in Olympic history. Following a one-month world tour last month, it is now on a three-month domestic circuit that has included taking a torch to the summit of Mount Everest.
However, since the flame was first lit in Greece on March 24, the relay has been repeatedly disrupted by groups trying to highlight grievances against China’s communist rulers, especially their rule of Tibet.
Matt Whitticase, spokesman for the London-based Free Tibet Campaign, said earlier this month that the Tibet leg was an attempt by China to “underscore its baseless claims to sovereignty over Tibet.”
During the Tibet unrest, protesters denounced Chinese rule and called for the return of the exiled Dalai Lama. Speaking on Wednesday during a trip to London, the Dalai Lama urged Tibetans not to disrupt the torch relay.
“I appeal, particularly inside Tibet, [people] should not disrupt the Olympic torch when they visit. We must respect, we must protect that,” he told reporters.
Olympic organizers had already pushed back the torch’s leg through quake-devastated Sichuan Province to Aug. 3 to Aug. 5, making it the last stop before coming to Beijing for the Aug. 8 to Aug. 24 Games.
The torch was in the eastern province of Jiangsu yesterday.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS