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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but