US President George W. Bush said yesterday he had used talks with Chinese leaders during the Olympic Games to press them to use their influence with Sudan to help end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
Wrapping up his Olympics tour, Bush said that in Sunday’s meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and other officials he raised US concerns, including human rights and religious freedoms in China and the situation in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.
“My attitude is if you’ve got relations with [Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir], think about helping to solve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur,” Bush said in an interview with NBC Sports. “That was my message to the Chinese government.”
Support for Sudan — China is a key investor in its oil industry and Khartoum’s biggest arms supplier — has been among the sources of international criticism of Beijing as the world’s spotlight has fallen on it for the Olympic games.
Bush has denounced the Sudanese government for its policies in the Darfur region, where conflict has taken some 200,000 lives and displaced some 2.5 million people since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.
Bush has called it genocide, a charge the Sudanese government has rejected.
The US protested to China over its decision before the Games’ opening ceremonies to revoke the visa of Olympic gold medallist Joey Cheek, an activist for Darfur.
DESPERATE ACT
State media quoted police as saying that the man who murdered an American tourist in Beijing before throwing himself off a tower acted out of despair over failures in his life.
Tang Yongming, 47, stabbed Todd Bachman — the father-in-law of US Olympic volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon — to death in Beijing on Saturday in an attack that also left his wife, Barbara, seriously injured.
Police in his hometown of Hangzhou in east China, said Tang “took his anger out on society” in an example of “individual, extreme behavior,” Xinhua news agency said late on Sunday.
Tang had two failed marriages and his 21-year-old son was sentenced to six months in prison for theft earlier this year, the news agency said.
STILL MISSING
Meanwhile, a Christian activist who was detained on his way to a church service attended by Bush on Sunday has not returned home, his brother said yesterday.
Hua Huilin said he and his brother, Hua Huiqi, a member of Beijing’s underground Christian church, were stopped by security agents in two black cars on Sunday while they were cycling to the Kuan Jie Protestant Church around dawn.
The pair was taken away in separate cars and Hua Huilin said he was released a few hours later. He said his brother, however, remained missing.
“We’re so worried,” Hua Huilin said by telephone yesterday.
A man who answered the telephone at the spokesman’s office of
the Beijing Public Security Bureau said yesterday officials there were trying to find out what happened and would only comment when they had “an accurate answer.”
‘TERRORISTS’
Two women were among a squad of assailants that hurled homemade bombs at government buildings and police this week in violence that left 12 people dead in a Muslim region of China, officials said yesterday.
Police were still investigating whether the attackers belonged to a group allegedly linked to al-Qaeda that has threatened to disrupt the Games.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
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