U.S. confirms Beijing Winter Olympic diplomatic boycott
Global News
U.S. athletes will attend the games and have the U.S. government's full support, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.
The United States said on Monday it will not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, after China pledged unspecified “countermeasures” against any such diplomatic boycott.
President Joe Biden said last month that he was considering such a diplomatic boycott amid criticism of China’s human rights record, including what Washington says is genocide against minority Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang.
“The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told a daily press briefing.
“U.S. diplomatic or official representation would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the PRC’s egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang, and we simply can’t do that,” Psaki said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
China’s embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The diplomatic boycott, which has been encouraged https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senators-propose-adding-boycott-chinas-winter-olympics-defense-bill-2021-10-28 by some members of the U.S. Congress for months, would not affect the attendance of American athletes, she said.
“The athletes on Team USA have our full support. We will be behind them 100% as we cheer them on from home.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a news briefing earlier in Beijing that those calling for a boycott are “grandstanding” and should stop “so as not to affect the dialog and cooperation between China and the United States in important areas.”
Putin’s endorsement of the new nuclear deterrent policy comes on the 1,000th day after he sent troops into Ukraine, on Feb. 24, 2022.
Nearly 2,200 layoff notices went to workers in Washington and another 220 in South Carolina, the two states where Boeing builds commercial airliners.
The deadly haze covered monuments and high-rise buildings in the capital of New Delhi, with visibility so low that airlines warned of delays.
The death is being investigated by federal authorities but "the preliminary cause" has been ruled an accident.
The incident took place more than a month ago, on October 13, but it wasn't reported until the British tabloids got wind of the story.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
Washington is easing limits on what Ukraine can strike with U.S.-made weaponry, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, sources said, without revealing details due to operational security concerns.
Concerns storm surges could raise water levels between one and three feet above ground level as Tropical Storm Sara makes landfall in Belize.
Air defenses could be heard engaging drones over Kyiv in the night, and a series of powerful blasts rang out across the city as the missile attack was under way in the morning.
John Kirton, head of the G20 Research Group, says the forum is the main tool countries have to prepare for the second Donald Trump presidency.