KEY POINTS:
China has been called upon to abandon its support for Sudan by a coalition of Nobel Prize-winners and international athletes, who demanded that this year's Olympic hosts cease to trade with a regime which is held responsible by the world for the carnage in Darfur.
A letter of protest, organised by a group of women Nobel laureates, criticises China's President Hu Jintao for providing succour to a government "that continues to carry out atrocities against its own people".
The letter, signed by eight Nobel Peace laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a host of international public figures, follows hard on the heels of the withdrawal of the film director Steven Spielberg as artistic adviser to the 2008 games.
The laureates' letter and Spielberg's protest have been seized on by international human rights groups who now sense a real opportunity to use the Olympics to embarrass China into using its influence over Khartoum.
China buys about two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports and sells weapons to Khartoum, many of which find their way to a conflict in Darfur which has been described by the US as "genocidal".
- INDEPENDENT
