English
Georgia may pull out of Beijing Games
Georgia’s Olympic team follow their national flag-bearer Ramaz Nozadze during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium, August 8, 2008. |
Georgia’s 35-strong Olympic team may pull out of the Games because of the Russian offensive in their country, their National Olympic Committee told Reuters on Saturday.
“We don’t know what will happen but we’re talking about it now. It will be the decision of the president of the country (Mikheil Saakashvili),” spokesman Giorgi Tchanishvili said.
Georgia called for a ceasefire on Saturday after Russian bombers widened an offensive to force back Georgian troops seeking control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Russia put the death toll at 2,000, and 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia had fled to Russia over the past 36 hours. Moscow said two of its warplanes had been shot down, 13 of its soldiers killed and 70 wounded.
The Georgian Olympic team urged the international community to help end the violence.
“This deliberate strategy of aggression has grown into a full-scale military intervention involving all regions of Georgia,” the athletes said in a statement.
“Georgia calls upon the international community to make it clear (to Russia) that intrusion into and bombing of the territory of a sovereign state is unacceptable in the 21st century and that such acts cannot and will not be tolerated.”
MONTREAL 76
The Olympics has suffered boycotts in the past, but it would be highly unusual for a team to pull out during the Games.
Among the most high profile withdrawals was one by several African nations a day after the start of the 1976 Montreal Olympics in protest over a New Zealand rugby tour of South Africa, at the time of the apartheid regime.
Earlier on Saturday the International Olympic Committee said the escalating conflict was a sad reality with the Games essentially being a symbol of peace.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had also issued an appeal calling on all warring nations to honor a traditional truce during the Games which opened on Friday.
“We can only bring the ideal of how sport can bring people together. It is a very complex issue and it is not for the IOC to give a perspective on what has been happening,” IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.
“It is not what the world wants to see. It is contrary to what the Olympic ideal stands for. The sad reality is that there are a number of countries (at the Olympics) that are in conflict,” she said.
U.S. President George W. Bush, who is in Beijing for the opening of the Games, said Russian attacks on Georgia marked a “dangerous escalation” of the crisis and urged Moscow to halt the bombing immediately.
Source: Reuters
More Top News
Hollywood heavyweights Robert De Niro and Al Pacino reunited on the red carpet in New York Wednesday night for the premiere of their new crime thriller “Righteous Kill” — their first film together since making 1995’s “Heat.”
The movie also stars
The Pakistani Army has been given orders to retaliate against any unilateral strike by the Afghanistan-based US troops inside the country.
Army Spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas confirmed the orders in a brief interview with Geo News on late Thursday night.
The
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he will not accept military action or new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities.
“We should not take any unilateral steps. It is not acceptable to opt for a military scenario. It would be dangerous,”
As the world marks the seventh anniversary of 9/11, some European experts say security improvements in the US have been undercut by fairly basic mistakes. Among the remedies is more trust in America’s laws and allies.
Seven years after the attacks
David Miliband has allegedly come in for a rather undiplomatic tongue-lashing from his Russian counterpart.
The Foreign Secretary was apparently given a furious dressing down by Sergei Lavrov over the telephone.
Mr Miliband’s criticism of Russia’s recent incursion into Georgia is believed
PIETERMARITZBURG, South Africa - A South African judge ruled Friday that prosecutors were wrong to charge ANC President Jacob Zuma with corruption, effectively clearing way for the 66-year-old former freedom fighter to become the country’s next president.
Judge Chris Nicholson’s ruling
Thailand’s political turmoil deepened Friday when the ruling coalition failed to turn up to parliament to reelect leader Samak Sundaravej as prime minister.
Lawmakers from the six-party coalition did not attend an emergency session of parliament called to choose a prime minister, three days after a court stripped Samak of power for accepting payments for hosting
Feeds