Olympic Updates

A boycott of this summer's Beijing Olympic Games should be considered if China does not re-evaluate its actions in Tibet, the president of the European Parliament said in an interview to be published in a German newspaper on Sunday.

"Beijing must decide. It must negotiate with the Dalai Lama immediately," Hans-Gert Poettering told the mass circulation Bild newspaper. Poettering added that boycott measures were justified, if there was no attempt at reconciling the differences.

"We should not exclude the possibility of a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. We want a successful Games, but not at the price of the cultural genocide of the Tibetans," he said.

Poettering, a member of the conservative Christian bloc in the parliament, said the European Parliament would discuss the situation in Tibet on Wednesday. (...more)