THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2007
NEWS
9A
GOVERNMENT
Lawrence Jackson/ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE DALAI Lama is greeted upon his arrival in Washington, Monday. He is in Washington where he will receive the Congressional Gold Medal during a ceremony today.
Bush meets with Dalai Lama
BY FOSTER KLUG ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - The White House defended President Bush's plan to meet with the Dalai Lama Tuesday, brushing aside China's warning that it would damage relations between Washington and Beijing.
Both Bush and members of Congress — who are presenting him with the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday — are stirring anger in China by honoring the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet's Buddhists.
"We solemnly demand that the U.S. cancel the extremely wrong arrangements," said Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing. "It seriously violates the norm of international relations and seriously wounded the feelings of the Chinese
people and interfered with Chinas internal affairs"
At the White House, presidential spokesman Tony Fratto said: "We understand the concerns of the Chinese." But he also said Bush always had attended congressional award presentation
in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, Beijing reviles the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and claims he seeks to destroy China's sovereignty by pushing for independence for Tibet, where the Dalai Lama is considered a god-king.
The Dalai Lama's special envoy, Lodi Gyari, said earlier that the president of the United States standing side by side with the Dalai Lama at the ceremony would send a clear message that "people do care about Tibet. We have not been forgotten."
"I have no doubt this will give tremendous encouragement and hope to the Tibetan people," he told reporters ahead of the visit. It also "sends a powerful message to China that the Dalai Lama is not going to go away."
"This is a meeting with a spiritual leader. This is not a meeting with a, for example, a head of state," Fratto added.
ceremonies, had met with the Dalai Lama several times before and had no reason not to meet with him again.
No media access was allowed to the meeting that Bush was having with the Dalai Lama Tuesday in the private residence of the White House.
The Dalai Lama said he wanted "real autonomy," not independence, for Tibet. But China demonizes the
While the Dalai Lama is lauded
"This is a meeting with a spiritual leader. This is not a meeting with a, for example, a head of state."
TONY FRATTO Presidential spokesman
spiritual leader and believes the United States is honoring a separatist. The Dalai Lama's U.S. visit comes as China is holding its important Communist Party congress.
Chinese diplomats worked
doggedly since the congressional award was voted on last year to get the ceremony and meeting with Bush scrapped and to "correct this mistake," Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in an interview.
A U.S. State Department official said Monday that China was protesting U.S. honors for the Dalai Lama by pulling out of an international strategy session on Iran sought by the United States and planned for Wednesday.
in the meeting on the day that the Buddhist leader is to receive the congressional honor, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe another country's motives.
Wang Baodong, a Chinese Embassy spokesman here, did not directly dispute the U.S. depiction but said that the date for the Iran meeting was "not suitable" for the Chinese delegation.
China objected to participating
The State Department also played down the visit. Spokesman Tom Casey said this week's events are unlikely "to change the basic shape and structure of U.S.-Chinese relations."
Congress has long championed the Dalai Lama; lawmakers also regularly criticize Beijing for human rights abuses and a massive military buildup and claim that China ignores abuse by unsavory foreign regimes in Sudan and Myanmar in its pursuit of energy and business deals.
The Bush administration also finds fault with China but is usually more measured as it seeks to manage a booming trade relationship and a desire to enlist Chinese cooperation on nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran.
Analysts said Bush's decision to attend the public congressional ceremony reflected his concern over the situation in Tibet.
Judith Shapiro, a China author and professor at American University, said the visit was "not going to profoundly affect ties in either direction. China needs the U.S., the U.S. needs China, and issues like Tibet are a bit of a sideshow to the basic relationship."
The Dalai Lama is immensely popular in Tibet, which China has ruled with a heavy hand since its communist-led forces invaded in 1951. He has been based in India since fleeing his Himalayan homeland in 1959 amid a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
INTERNATIONAL
Putin pushes pipeline veto
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BYVLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
TEHRAN, Iran — Vladimir Putin issued a veiled warning Tuesday against any attack on Iran as he began the first visit by a Kremlin leader to Tehran in six decades, a mission reflecting Russian-Iranian efforts to curb U.S. influence.
He also suggested Moscow and Tehran should have a veto on Western plans for new pipelines to carry oil and natural gas from the Gaspian Sea, using routes that would bypass Russian soil and break the Kremlin's monopoly on energy deliveries from the region.
Putin came to Tehran for a summit of the five nations bordering the Caspian, but his visit was aimed more at strengthening
efforts to blunt U.S. economic and military ties in the area. Yet he also refused to set a date for completing Iran's first nuclear reactor, trying to avoid an outright show of support for Iran's defiance over its nuclear program.
Putin strongly warned outside powers against use of force in the region, a clear reference to the United States, which many in Iran fear will attack over the West's suspicions that the Iranians are secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made similar comments.
"We are saying that no (Caspian) nations should offer their territory to outside powers for aggression or any military action against any of the Caspian states," Putin said.
The five national leaders at the summit later signed a declaration that included a similar statement — an apparent reflection of Iranian fears that the United States could use Azerbaijan's territory as a staging ground for military strikes in Iran.
Putin has warned against such attacks previously, but reiterating them in Tehran gave them greater resonance — particularly at a summit for a region where Moscow deeply resents U.S. and European attempts at greater influence.
The Russian leader also used the occasion to make a nod to Iran's national pride — describing it as a "world power" and referring to the might of the ancient Persian empire.
CRIME
The door of the apartment of Jose Luis Calva is seen sealed by police in Mexico City. Calva, an aspiring horror novelist, was arrested after police found the carved-up torso of his 30-year-old girlfriend Alejandra Galeana, in his closet, a leg in his refrigerator and bones in a cereal box, according to a Mexico City prosecutor's spokesman.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Man suspected of eating girlfriend
BY MARK STEVENSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY — Forensics experts said Monday that chunks of flesh found in the apartment of an aspiring horror novelist were human, and that DNA tests were planned to confirm whether it came from the body of his girlfriend.
Dr. Rodolfo Rojo, chief medical examiner for Mexico City's prosecutor's office, said flesh found on the plate and frying pan in suspect Jose Luis Calva's apartment corresponded to parts missing from the corpse of his 32-year-old girlfriend, Alejandra Galeana.
Police found Galeana's body in a closet in the suspect's apartment last week after her family lead police to the building. Prosecutors said she had been strangled and partially disemm-
bered.
When asked if Calva had eaten the woman, prosecutor Gustavo Romulo Salas said: "That is the assumption that exists."
Police said that a search uncovered an unfinished novel by Calva titled "Cannibalistic Namews." One witness, whose name was withheld by officials, said Calva was fascinated by witchcraft and explicit and sadistic literature.
A surviving girlfriend, whose name was also withheld, told police that Calva was initially charming, winning her trust with poetry. But he soon turned jealous, controlling
and obsessive, and once attempted suicide, the woman said.
Prosecutors said Calva may have killed two other women whose dismembered bodies were found in Mexico City in 2004 and 2007. Like Galeana, both were strangled.
Calva, arrested last week, is being treated at a local hospital for head injuries he suffered while trying to escape police by swinging down balconies from his upper-floor apartment.
He doesn't have an attorney yet and hasn't made a court appearance or given a public statement.
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