PARIS —President Hu Jintao of China cut short a trip to Italy on Wednesday to fly home after the deadly ethnic clashes in the northwestern Xinjiang region, abandoning plans to attend the Group of Eight summit meeting as news reports spoke of continued unrest.
At the meeting, Mr. Hu had planned talks with President Obama on issues including climate change. Mr. Obama arrived in Italy on Wednesday from Moscow.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on its Web site that Mr. Hu was returning “given the current situation in Xinjiang,” where state media say at least 156 people have died in China’s worst ethnic clashes in decades between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese.
News reports from Urumqi, the regional capital, said up to 1,000 Han Chinese protesters gathered in Urumqi as squads of anti-riot police tried to break up the crowd.
Reuters said scuffles broke out as police and security forces seized apparent ringleaders, prompting cries of “release them, release them.”
The official Xinhua news agency said China would be represented at the meeting of the world’s leading industrialized economic powers by State Councillor Dai Bingguo at the meeting in the central Italian city of L’Aquila.
The host, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has expanded the meeting to include broader talks with leaders of the world’s main emerging economies.
Mr. Hu arrived in Italy on Sunday and also was scheduled to visit Portugal. The postponement of his plans seemed an indication of the seriousness of the unrest in northwestern China.
His absence from the G-8 meeting is also significant for the Obama administration which is expected to unveil a forceful new message on climate change.
While the European G-8 members welcome the shift in American policy on global warming, they are also fear that the United States is working toward a separate deal with China outside the global negotiating framework.
Showing posts with label Paris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paris. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Iran Says British Embassy Staff to Stand Trial
Paris — Brushing aside British and European efforts to seek the release of local British Embassy staff held in Tehran, the Iranian authorities indicated Friday that they planned to put some of them on trial — a move that could deepen crisis in diplomatic relations with the European Union and provoke the withdrawal of ambassadors.
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In London, the Foreign Office said it was urgently checking reports that the Iranian authorities planned to put two of its local employees on trial. Nine staff members were seized after the unrest sparked by Iran’s disputed presidential elections on June 12 and as many as eight of them were subsequently reported to have been released. But the precise number still detained held was not clear.
Iranian state television said all but one of the nine had been released. But Carl Bildt, the foreign minister of Sweden, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, said “more than one” remained in custody.
The Iranian authorities accused the local employees of fomenting and orchestrating protests, but pro-democracy Iranians ascribed the violence on the streets to a widespread crackdown by government security forces.
In London, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office, speaking in return for customary anonymity under civil service rules, said: “We are very concerned by these reports and are investigating. Allegations that our staff are involved in fomenting unrest are wholly without foundation. We will be seeking an urgent explanation from the Iranians.”
Britain has been pressing the European Union to withdraw all its ambassadors from Tehran in protest. European officials have indicated that any talk of a trial — or show trial — would hasten those measures.
News reports on Friday quoted Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the influential Guardian Council and an ally of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as telling worshipers at Friday prayers in Tehran that the local employees would be tried after they “made confessions.”
Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many of the British detainees would be tried or what charges they would face, news reports said.
Reuters quoted him as saying: “In these developments their embassy here maintained a presence in which individuals were arrested and inevitably they will be tried as they have made confessions.”
The Guardian Council is an influential panel of 12 clerics whose responsibilities including vetting elections. Earlier this week it certified the disputed presidential vote that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, despite opposition claims of electoral fraud and huge protests on the streets.
Until Thursday, European Union diplomats meeting in Stockholm were searching for ways to resolve the standoff without withdrawing ambassadors from Tehran. But Swedish officials said an Iranian move to put the British Embassy personnel on trial would escalate the dispute and strengthen Britain’s demand for recalling the ambassadors.
The Iranian authorities have begun blaming foreigners for the recent unrest and have directed much of their ire at Britain.
Iran’s leaders are struggling to put the election, and the passionate dissatisfaction the results unleashed, behind them. Although the government managed to halt the huge protests days ago using tactics that included mass arrests, it has been unable, or unwilling, to silence Mir Hussein Moussavi, the moderate who says the election was stolen from him, and some of his influential supporters.
On Wednesday, Mohammad Khatami, a charismatic former president who remains extremely popular, made his strongest statements yet. He called the election “a coup against the republicanism of the system” and warned: “Do not think that suppressing the protests would put an end to them. They will emerge again but in different forms.”
He also spoke caustically of the mass arrests of demonstrators: “If these people have committed crimes, why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don’t they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven’t they been charged?”
This week, the Interior Ministry said it would withdraw the permit for the Combatant Clergy, a political party to which Mr. Khatami belongs, as well as two other reformist parties that have supported him in the past.
Alan Cowell reported from Paris, and Stephen Castle from Brussels. Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Toronto.
Skip to next paragraph Related
In London, the Foreign Office said it was urgently checking reports that the Iranian authorities planned to put two of its local employees on trial. Nine staff members were seized after the unrest sparked by Iran’s disputed presidential elections on June 12 and as many as eight of them were subsequently reported to have been released. But the precise number still detained held was not clear.
Iranian state television said all but one of the nine had been released. But Carl Bildt, the foreign minister of Sweden, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, said “more than one” remained in custody.
The Iranian authorities accused the local employees of fomenting and orchestrating protests, but pro-democracy Iranians ascribed the violence on the streets to a widespread crackdown by government security forces.
In London, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office, speaking in return for customary anonymity under civil service rules, said: “We are very concerned by these reports and are investigating. Allegations that our staff are involved in fomenting unrest are wholly without foundation. We will be seeking an urgent explanation from the Iranians.”
Britain has been pressing the European Union to withdraw all its ambassadors from Tehran in protest. European officials have indicated that any talk of a trial — or show trial — would hasten those measures.
News reports on Friday quoted Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of the influential Guardian Council and an ally of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as telling worshipers at Friday prayers in Tehran that the local employees would be tried after they “made confessions.”
Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many of the British detainees would be tried or what charges they would face, news reports said.
Reuters quoted him as saying: “In these developments their embassy here maintained a presence in which individuals were arrested and inevitably they will be tried as they have made confessions.”
The Guardian Council is an influential panel of 12 clerics whose responsibilities including vetting elections. Earlier this week it certified the disputed presidential vote that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, despite opposition claims of electoral fraud and huge protests on the streets.
Until Thursday, European Union diplomats meeting in Stockholm were searching for ways to resolve the standoff without withdrawing ambassadors from Tehran. But Swedish officials said an Iranian move to put the British Embassy personnel on trial would escalate the dispute and strengthen Britain’s demand for recalling the ambassadors.
The Iranian authorities have begun blaming foreigners for the recent unrest and have directed much of their ire at Britain.
Iran’s leaders are struggling to put the election, and the passionate dissatisfaction the results unleashed, behind them. Although the government managed to halt the huge protests days ago using tactics that included mass arrests, it has been unable, or unwilling, to silence Mir Hussein Moussavi, the moderate who says the election was stolen from him, and some of his influential supporters.
On Wednesday, Mohammad Khatami, a charismatic former president who remains extremely popular, made his strongest statements yet. He called the election “a coup against the republicanism of the system” and warned: “Do not think that suppressing the protests would put an end to them. They will emerge again but in different forms.”
He also spoke caustically of the mass arrests of demonstrators: “If these people have committed crimes, why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don’t they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven’t they been charged?”
This week, the Interior Ministry said it would withdraw the permit for the Combatant Clergy, a political party to which Mr. Khatami belongs, as well as two other reformist parties that have supported him in the past.
Alan Cowell reported from Paris, and Stephen Castle from Brussels. Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Toronto.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Plane with Comoros crash survivor arrives in Paris
A French official plane carrying a young girl thought to be the only survivor of the crash of a Yemenia A310 has arrived in Paris from Comoros.
Fourteen-year-old Bahia Bakari was brought back to France on an official aircraft with the transport minister and other French officials. It arrived at Le Bourget airport shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday.
An ambulance drove up to the aircraft, and she was expected to be taken immediately to a hospital.
Bakari had boarded a plane in Paris on Monday morning for the long journey to Comoros via Marseille and San'a, Yemen. The plane crashed before dawn Tuesday in severe turbulence, and she spent some 13 hours in the water before she was rescued.
The other 151 people aboard, including Bakari's mother, are presumed dead.
source : The Associated Press
Fourteen-year-old Bahia Bakari was brought back to France on an official aircraft with the transport minister and other French officials. It arrived at Le Bourget airport shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday.
An ambulance drove up to the aircraft, and she was expected to be taken immediately to a hospital.
Bakari had boarded a plane in Paris on Monday morning for the long journey to Comoros via Marseille and San'a, Yemen. The plane crashed before dawn Tuesday in severe turbulence, and she spent some 13 hours in the water before she was rescued.
The other 151 people aboard, including Bakari's mother, are presumed dead.
source : The Associated Press
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