China responded to what has become a public relations disaster ahead of the Olympic Games yesterday amid mounting pressure over its role in Darfur after US filmmaker Steven Spielberg severed his links to the Games.
Beijing expressed regret yesterday over Spielberg's decision, saying it was unacceptable to link politics to the Olympics.
Authorities also defended China's involvement with Sudan.
"We feel regret about his remarks," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
"Some people are attempting to link the Darfur issue with Chinese government policies in Sudan, even with the organization of the Olympics," he said. "If they don't know the Chinese policy, I can understand. But if they have got some objectives, especially political objectives, we cannot accept that."
Meanwhile, a letter published yesterday in London's Independent newspaper from Olympic athletes and Nobel Prize winners urged Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to pressure Sudan over Darfur.
"As the primary economic, military and political partner of the government of Sudan, and as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China has both the opportunity and the responsibility to contribute to a just peace in Darfur," the letter said. "Ongoing failure to rise to this responsibility amounts, in our view, to support for a government that continues to carry out atrocities against its own people."
China's state-run media were largely silent yesterday about Spielberg's decision to pull out and the mounting pressure on Beijing over Darfur.
The media is required to follow the government line, with mandated blackouts reserved for the most sensitive of issues.
With less than six months to go before the Games, Darfur is one of just many blackspots that threaten to tarnish the Olympics.
Beijing's treatment of Tibet, its oppression of Taiwan internationally and the government's wide-ranging human rights abuses are among the other issues to have generated controversy.
Sudan's Olympic Committee expressed regret yesterday that Spielberg pulled out.
"We have always been against politics creeping into sport and we have never mixed the two," committee head and retired general Salah Mohammed Saleh said.
"Nothing harms the sporting spirit more than politics," he said.
TYPHOON: The storm’s path indicates a high possibility of Krathon making landfall in Pingtung County, depending on when the storm turns north, the CWA said Typhoon Krathon is strengthening and is more likely to make landfall in Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said in a forecast released yesterday afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the CWA’s updated sea warning for Krathon showed that the storm was about 430km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point. It was moving in west-northwest at 9kph, with maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts of up to 155kph, CWA data showed. Krathon is expected to move further west before turning north tomorrow, CWA forecaster Wu Wan-hua (伍婉華) said. The CWA’s latest forecast and other countries’ projections of the storm’s path indicate a higher
SLOW-MOVING STORM: The typhoon has started moving north, but at a very slow pace, adding uncertainty to the extent of its impact on the nation Work and classes have been canceled across the nation today because of Typhoon Krathon, with residents in the south advised to brace for winds that could reach force 17 on the Beaufort scale as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecast that the storm would make landfall there. Force 17 wind with speeds of 56.1 to 61.2 meters per second, the highest number on the Beaufort scale, rarely occur and could cause serious damage. Krathon could be the second typhoon to land in southwestern Taiwan, following typhoon Elsie in 1996, CWA records showed. As of 8pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 180km
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STILL DANGEROUS: The typhoon was expected to weaken, but it would still maintain its structure, with high winds and heavy rain, the weather agency said One person had died amid heavy winds and rain brought by Typhoon Krathon, while 70 were injured and two people were unaccounted for, the Central Emergency Operation Center said yesterday, while work and classes have been canceled nationwide today for the second day. The Hualien County Fire Department said that a man in his 70s had fallen to his death at about 11am on Tuesday while trimming a tree at his home in Shoufeng Township (壽豐). Meanwhile, the Yunlin County Fire Department received a report of a person falling into the sea at about 1pm on Tuesday, but had to suspend search-and-rescue
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