[+/-] : Obama says he wouldn't attend the Olympics opening

Obama says he wouldn't attend the Olympics opening

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama took issue Monday with President Bush's decision to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, saying he would go to Beijing only if he saw progress between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama.

"In the absence of some sense of progress, in the absence of some sense from the Dalai Lama that there was progress, I would not have gone," the presidential candidate told reporters at a news conference.

Obama previously has called on the Republican president to boycott the ceremonies.

Bush said last week that he will attend opening ceremonies for the games in Beijing next month. Some world leaders plan to boycott the event because of China's human rights record and its handling of unrest in Tibet.

Chinese officials met last week with two envoys sent to Beijing by the Dalai Lama from his exile base in India.

A statement issued Saturday from the Tibetan side said another meeting would be held in October, but said it wished the Chinese leadership had taken "more tangible" steps during the talks. The Chinese side failed to agree to issue a joint statement committing the two sides to talks, it said

Obama said he "would liked to have seen some more aggressive efforts to encourage progress and talks between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama.

"It strikes me that although some meetings have been taking place, that we were not aggressive in encouraging the Chinese government to make serious concessions there," he said.

Bush on Sunday defended his decision, saying that to skip the opening ceremonies would be an "affront" to the Chinese people.

Obama's Republican rival, John McCain, said in April that if he were president, he would only attend the opening ceremonies if China improves its record on human rights and other issues.
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[+/-] : Homegrown threats top Olympics security worries-official

Homegrown threats top Olympics security worries-official

Reuters
Homegrown threats top China's security worries for the Beijing Olympic Games, an official overseeing security said, warning that airborne threats to Games venues will be shot down if they come too close.

Tian Yixiang, head of the Beijing Olympic Games Security Protection Coordinating Group, said the top "terror" threats to the August Games come from Uighur militants campaigning for independence for Xinjiang in China's far northwest, from Tibetan independence groups, and from followers of the banned Falun Gong sect.
"The security situation facing the Beijing Olympic Games is stable overall, but there remain threats in the traditional and non-traditional security spheres," Tian told the official magazine Outlook Weekly.

"Terror attacks are the principal threat to Olympic Games Security," he said, according to the report, which was circulated on the Xinhua news agency's website (www.xinhuanet.com).

Tian, who has rarely given public comments on preparations for the Games, said a failed bomb attack on a plane in Xinjiang in March and anti-Chinese unrest across Tibet that same month, "amply showed that they are scheming to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games".

The official comments bluntly underscored how, just over a month before the Games open on Aug. 8, Beijing sees the main Games threat from long-term domestic worries, rather than international terrorist groups with no direct focus on Chinese policies.
Exiled Uighurs and groups campaigning for Tibetan self-determination have both repeatedly denounced as self-serving exaggeration China's claims that they form terrorist threats.

In talks last week with envoys of the Dalai Lama, Chinese officials said the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader should denounce "violent terror" and named the exiled Tibetan Youth Congress as a particular threat.

The Dalai Lama's envoys said they "categorically rejected" the Chinese claims that the Congress engaged in "violent terror".

Tian said the airspace around Games venues would be closely controlled and security forces would seek to warn off, force down or shoot down airborne attacks as they approached.

Chinese military forces have been readying for the Games since early 2005, and were still rigorously training, Tian said.
(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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[+/-] : Rights Group Slams China's Handling of the Media Before Olympics

Rights Group Slams China's Handling of the Media Before Olympics

By VOA News

An international human rights group says the Chinese government continues to threaten and block foreign journalists in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.


In a new report, Human Rights Watch says correspondents in China face severe difficulties in accessing forbidden areas and covering topics that the Chinese government considers sensitive.

The report cites examples of how journalists were barred from Tibet and other Tibetan areas in the wake of unrest there in March. It also documents how foreign reporters and their sources have faced intimidation or are barred from covering stories that would embarrass authorities, or tell more about incidents of social unrest.

The report's release Monday comes a day before China opens its main press center for the August games.

About 25,000 journalists are expected to cover the Beijing Games.

The group's report is based on more than 60 interviews with correspondents in China between December, 2007 and June of this year.

The report says China's foreign ministry has declined to investigate death threats made against more than 10 correspondents in March and April of this year, following the unrest in Tibet.

It also says authorities have threatened to revoke media organizations' accreditation to the Olympics if they report on events that could embarrass the Chinese government.

Human Rights Watch Asia Advocacy Director Sophie Richardson says that with such restraints in place, the Chinese government is limiting the ability of journalists to objectively report on the complex realities of modern China.
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[+/-] : Smog in Beijing five times over safety limit as Olympics nears

Smog in Beijing five times over safety limit as Olympics nears

Flora Bagenal, Times on Line

Pollution around the Olympic stadium in Beijing could be five times worse than levels deemed safe by the World Health Organisation.

Chinese officials admit they can no longer guarantee that the air quality will match international standards as pollution tests by The Sunday Times revealed the full extent of the challenge facing British athletes.

With just five weeks to go before the start of the Beijing Games, tests conducted outside the national stadium — known as the Bird’s Nest — and at Tiananmen Square, the starting point of the marathon, showed the air is thick with particulate pollution.

Even the Chinese government’s official air pollution index — which monitors a range of pollutants, including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — is running at double the level recommended by the WHO.

Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing’s Environmental Protection Bureau, said: “We made a commitment to ensure air quality for the Olympic Games . . . as for whether we have reached the goal, that will be examined after the event.”

The British team is taking no chances and will train in Macau on the southern coast until the last minute to minimise athletes’ exposure to Beijing’s smog.

Haile Gebrselassie, the world’s leading long-distance runner, who suffers from asthma, has already pulled out of the marathon.

Last week The Sunday Times used an industrial hand-held air monitor to measure the number of particles in the atmosphere, which include car emissions and coal dust from factories. The particles are considered the biggest polluting factor.

The average reading at the stadium was 780,000 particles per litre of air. Even factoring in a 25% margin of error for humidity levels exaggerating the readings, this is more than five times the amount deemed safe by the WHO. The organisation considers 105,000 particles per litre of air a health risk.

Average readings at Tiananmen Square were lower — but still four times worse than the WHO standards when factoring in the humidity.

“Anything over 300,000 would be very worrying if you were using the same equipment in London,” said Professor Frank Kelly, a pollution expert at Kings College London.
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