Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said he will not attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but it is not clear if the country will join a US-led diplomatic boycott of the Games over human rights abuses. Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Kishida said: “I have no plans at this point to attend” and did not clarify if Japan would send any officials to the event, amid reports that it was unlikely to snub the hosts altogether. Kishida has said only that he will make a…
Tag: Olympic Games
WTA does the right thing in standing up to China over Peng Shuai | Barney Ronay
When the Russian tanks roll westward, what defence for you and me? Colonel Sloman’s Essex Rifles? Or the 66-year-old chairman of the WTA? Well, there’s an unusual thing. It turns out there is at least one body in sport, and indeed in public life, with the guts, the spleen, the fuzzy green balls to make a stand in the face of power and basic questions of right and wrong. It isn’t clear what the full implications might be of the decision by the Women’s Tennis Association to suspend its activities…
The Olympic Torch Arrives in Beijing Under Cloud of Protests, Covid
The Olympic torch arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, beginning a countdown to a Winter Games being held under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic and calls for a boycott over China’s rights abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang. The arrival ceremony, like the official lighting of the Olympic flame in Athens on Monday, unfolded without spectators, one of many concessions to Covid-19 that will severely restrict access to the games, which begin on Feb. 4. China, with the “full support” of the International Olympic Committee, is planning to hold…