Meaning:
- If someone wins something fair and square, they follow the rules and win conclusively.
Chinese news service reported that gold medal gymnast was 13 | Story Highlights
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 If the Chinese news report is correct, gold medalist He Kexin is two years under the age of Olympic eligibility (16). Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated |
BEIJING (AP) -- Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.
In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, www.hb.xinhuanet.com
The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.
If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics. He is also a favorite for gold in Monday's uneven bars final.
Yang was also on Wednesday's winning team. Questions have also been raised about her age and that of a third team member, Jiang Yuyuan.
Gymnasts have to be 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible for the games. He's birthday is listed as Jan. 1, 1992. (Judge for yourself here, and offer your reactions here.)
Chinese authorities insist that all three are old enough to compete. He herself told reporters after Wednesday's final that "my real age is 16. I don't pay any attention to what everyone says."
Zhang Hongliang, an official with China's gymnastics delegation at the games, said Thursday the differing ages which have appeared in Chinese media reports had not been checked in advance with the gymnastics federation.
"It's definitely a mistake," Zhang said of the Xinhua report, speaking in a telephone interview. "Never has any media outlet called me to check the athletes' ages."
Asked whether the federation had changed their ages to make them eligible, Zhang said: "We are a sports department. How would we have the ability to do that?"
"We already explained this very clearly. There's no need to discuss this thing again."
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has said repeatedly that a passport is the "accepted proof of a gymnast's eligibility," and that He and China's other gymnasts have presented ones that show they are age eligible. The IOC also checked the girls' passports and deemed them valid.
A May 23 story in the China Daily newspaper, the official English-language paper of the Chinese government, said He was 14. The story was later corrected to list her as 16.
"This is not a USAG issue," said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. "The FIG and the IOC are the proper bodies to handle this."
Speaking of police states:
August 15, 2008
Naomi Klein and Christian Parenti on How Beijing Olympics Highlight Globalization of Police State, Inequality
The equipment and integrated security systems used to detain Olympic protesters will remain long after the Olympics, to be used, many fear, on China’s own population. And some of the biggest beneficiaries of this surveillance boom are US hedge funds and corporations, including Cisco, General Electric and Google. We speak to journalists Naomi Klein and Christian Parenti, both of whom have recently reported from China.
China deported five international activists today for unfurling a “Free Tibet” banner over the top of an Olympic Games billboard. Its the latest incident in what has become an almost daily crackdown on both domestic and international protesters who’ve had to contend with a brand new surveillance system that China set up ahead of the games.
This includes 300,000 security cameras and an estimated 100,000 security officers on duty in Beijing. But its not just Beijing thats gotten a security upgrade, there are now over 600 “safe” cities in China that have received new surveillance gear. The equipment and integrated security systems will remain long after the Olympics, to be used, many fear, on China’s own population. The domestic surveillance market in China is expected to reach $33 billion dollars next year. And some of the biggest beneficiaries of this boom are US hedge funds and corporations including Cisco, General Electric, and Google.
Award-winning journalist and best-selling author Naomi Klein calls this “McCommunism.” Her latest article published in the Huffington Post is titled “The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0.” Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine” joins us now on the phone from Canada.
We’re also joined here in the firehouse studio by investigative journalist and author Christian Parenti. He’s also just back from China and his latest piece for the Nation is called “Class Struggle in the New China.”
Naomi Klein, award-winning journalist and bestselling author. Her most recent book is The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her latest articles are about surveillance in China.
Christian Parenti, Journalist and author of three books, including most recently The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq. His latest article published in The Nation is called “Class Struggle in the New China.”
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August 12, 2008
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Planners seeking to rebuild the World Trade Center have always envisioned that the 16-acre site would have a vibrant streetscape with distinctive buildings, shops and cultural institutions lining a newly restored street grid. From the destruction of Sept. 11, 2001, a new neighborhood teeming with life would be born.
But now, the Police Department’s latest security proposal entails heavy restrictions.
According to a 36-page presentation given by top-ranking police officials in recent months, the entire area would be placed within a security zone, in which only specially screened taxis, limousines and cars would be allowed through “sally ports,” or barriers staffed by police officers, constructed at each of five entry points.
Roughly a dozen guard booths would be established at street corners where pedestrians or vehicles are most likely to enter the area, while the western lanes of Church Street would be reserved for emergency vehicles.
All service and delivery trucks for the trade center site would be directed to an underground bomb screening center at the south side of the complex. Tour buses would drop off and pick up passengers at Liberty and Greenwich Streets. But no bus would be summoned from the underground security center and garage until all the passengers are present, a requirement that could leave large clots of tourists waiting for stragglers.
The plan is designed to prevent a third terrorist attack on the site, said Paul J. Browne, deputy police commissioner for public information, and, he said, would have little effect on either traffic or pedestrians. It is among the more striking features of the Police Department’s overall plan for Manhattan security, which also includes measures to photograph every vehicle entering Manhattan, and scan its license plate, and then keep the information on file for at least a month. The department hopes to have the plan in place by 2010, by the time Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg leaves office.
Landlords, company executives, public officials and some urban planners acknowledged the need for security at ground zero, but worried that the procedures would undermine the effort to reweave the trade center site into the city’s fabric. They fear that the proposed traffic restrictions could create tie-ups in a congested neighborhood and discourage corporate tenants from renting space, or shoppers from visiting the stores in the area.
“We want to make sure everyone is safe,” said Julie Menin, chairwoman of Community Board 1, which includes ground zero. “But it can’t be set up like the checkpoint at the New York Stock Exchange, which is inhospitable to anyone living or working in the area. Seven small businesses closed within a year of N.Y.P.D. setting up the checkpoint at the stock exchange.”
The restrictions could be a particular challenge for the three massive office towers planned by the developer Larry A. Silverstein, which would sit within the security zone. The towers were designed with entrances on Greenwich Street, between Vesey and Liberty Streets, where black cars and taxis could easily serve their corporate tenants.
According to the master plan for the site, the buildings also include a lot of retail space — about 250,000 square feet — for office workers, tourists and area residents. Advocates for Lower Manhattan are worried about the effect of traffic restrictions and a heavy police presence.
“Of course this has to be done with an eye toward security,” said Elizabeth H. Berger, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, a business group. “But that doesn’t mean checkpoints at every turn. It’s important that the office towers, the retail, the memorial and the performing arts center succeed.”
The security zone would extend west from Church Street, between Vesey and Liberty Streets, and include portions of several adjacent blocks.
Mr. Browne, addressing criticism that the security plan would undermine a normal commercial and cultural life in the neighborhood, said, “I think this will reassure people that this is probably the safest business environment anywhere.”
Mr. Browne said the plan, which is still being revised, would not involve checkpoints where pedestrians and visitors would have to open their bags for police inspection. “It’s designed principally to prevent a car- or truck-bomb attack,” he said, “but it’s also been designed with traffic concerns in mind.”
The proposal is part of the Police Department’s Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, a version of which has been presented to agencies involved in rebuilding Lower Manhattan by Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, and Richard A. Falkenrath, the deputy commissioner for counterterrorism. Like London’s security cordon, known as the “ring of steel,” the initiative relies on mobile teams of heavily armed officers as well as technology including closed-circuit television cameras, license plate readers and explosive trace detection systems.
But the trade center site plan involves a much higher degree of security.
Last month, the city and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, resolved a longstanding source of tension by giving Mr. Kelly and the Police Department broad control over security at the complex. Under the plan, the department would establish a World Trade Center Unit with about 600 officers and develop the overall security plan.
Word of the plan has circulated among real estate executives and business leaders for weeks. The Partnership for New York City, which includes chief executives from many of the city’s largest employers, has a meeting with Mr. Kelly on Sept. 8 to discuss it.
“There is concern in the downtown business community that the security plans are going to make the logistics of doing business more difficult, everything from getting deliveries to moving clients and employees around,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the partnership. “Is it going to work, or make doing business and getting people downtown more difficult? I don’t know.”
Some critics questioned whether the Police Department had conducted a traffic study to assess the effect of its vehicle restrictions in the neighborhood and the gridlock that could result from blocking off Greenwich and Fulton Streets and parts of Church Street.
Mr. Browne said the department was planning to minimize the potential delays by establishing a Trusted Access Program for bus, taxi, limousine and delivery drivers who need to enter the area regularly. To limit the number of trucks near Mr. Silverstein’s towers, the plan calls for building a raised median down the center of Church Street with a row of bollards, or barriers.
In the years after the attack on the trade center, city and state officials, civic and community groups, the Port Authority, families of those killed at the complex and others have debated exactly what should be built on the site. While some argued for a large memorial and others sought to rebuild the twin towers, many people favored reopening Greenwich and Fulton Streets rather than recreating the trade center superblock and its barren plaza. They also sought to animate the streets by including shops and a performing arts center.
That vision was incorporated into the master plan and an environmental review and adopted by the city, the state and the Port Authority. “Nobody contemplated that you wouldn’t have free entrance to the site,” said Alex Garvin, the former urban planner for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. “It was generally accepted that the streets would be like the rest of Manhattan, lined with retail stores.”
Aug 12, 2008 10:54 pm US/Central
Are Police Ready For Anarchy During The RNC?
ST. PAUL (WCCO) ― Controlling a crowd during a massive legal protest brings special challenges for police.
ReportingThe New York Police Department learned that lesson when it the Republican National Convention took place there in 2004. But a group bent on destruction, like the protesters at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, presents an entirely different security concern.
WCCO-TV has obtained several internal police documents documenting the possible tactics of the more radical groups that may try to disrupt the convention in St. Paul.
Police estimate anywhere from 700 to 1200 anarchist or anti-authoritarian protesters may be in the Twin Cities for the convention. Two people concealing their identities, using fake names and claiming to be part of an anarchist group, recently appeared on a Twin Cities program called Our World in Depth, a program that airs on a Web site.
During the program the host asked, "So are anarchists revolutionary, do they believe in a revolution?"
The answer was, "I hope so. To some extent, I hope every anarchist has a goal of revolution."
The Internet is the clearinghouse for information. The RNC Welcoming Committee and Unconventional Action are the prominent anti-authoritarian sites. One claims its goal is "to organize militant direct action that manifests opposition to both the Democratic and Republican Parties."
According to the internal police reports, blockading the Xcel Energy Center will be the primary strategy of local anarchists.
Another police document shows how the anarchists may divide St. Paul in sectors around the Xcel Energy Center with each group responsible for shutting down a specific area. Photos show some of the bridges and highways that are potential choke points for buses bringing delegates into St. Paul.
One document police obtained says '"few conventions have presented such clear transportation vulnerabilities and we would be foolish to pass up the opportunities those vulnerabilities present. The 2008 RNC is begging to be blockaded."
However, just last week police said they're prepared to get delegates in and out of the Xcel Energy Center.
"We already have a transportation plan that has sworn law enforcement officers, has department of corrections staff that will be staffing any critical positions along the transportation route," said St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington.
There will be about 3,500 officers available for security. Some in law enforcement, like Dave Titus, President of the St. Paul Police Federation, want more.
"Personally, we would have liked to have seen 6,000 cops. That's a number that we know that we can take on anything that is thrown at us but we'll see how it goes," he said.
The Ramsey County Sheriffs Office says it was no accident their office was not represented at a press conference in St. Paul last week. They don't share the view that all is well.
"I think Chief Harrington has underestimated the ability of anarchists to cause mayhem," said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.
In Anoka last month, it took police and fire personnel hours to remove just a few protesters locked together.
According to Titus, "the problem is going to be how many troublemakers come and it doesn't take many to cause a large scale problem."
And troublemakers could try to spread the police thin. According the intelligence reports from the St. Paul Police, possible anarchist targets include Alliant technologies, Ecolab, UnitedHealthcare surrounding hotels. And even the desire to "cause a total media blackout" or possibly overtake a news crew or camera.
Police said they'll respond with a specially trained mobile field force of 1200 officers that can go wherever they may be needed.
"If there is illegal behavior, if there is civil disturbance it has to be responded to quickly," said Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the St. Paul Police.
Between police intelligence and open statements from the anarchists, there isn't a lot mystery about what could happen.
The self-described anarchists on the Our World in Depth show said, "Well, something that came out of the first pReRnC was that we were going to try and blockade the streets and try to prevent the delegates from reaching the Xcel Energy Center and in the RNC Welcoming Committees words, 'crash the convention.'"
The question may be can the St. Paul Police stop it?
"Cops always prepare for the worst. That's the nature of who and what they are. So, I think that our people are prepared to respond if people behave badly," Walsh said.
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