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U.S. urges Chinese restraint

(CNN) — The United States is urging Chinese restraint after days of violent protests in Tibet, even as a deadline passed for anti-Chinese protesters to surrender.

Death tolls from the violence vary. Exiled Tibetan independence campaigners say at least 80 people died while Chinese authorities put the figure lower.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the United States is very concerned about the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan protesters.

We continue to urge restraint on the part of the Chinese government in terms of how it responds to these protesters.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to wire service reports from Moscow, said: We have really urged the Chinese over several years to find a way to talk with the Dalai Lama, who is a figure of authority, who is not a separatist, and to find a way to engage him and bring his moral weight to a more sustainable and better solution of the Tibet issue.

In a news conference in Beijing on Monday, Champa Phuntsok, the head of Tibet’s regional government, blamed the violence on a small group of separatists and criminals who take their lead from exiled followers of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

On Sunday, the exiled Dalai Lama condemned China’s action in his homeland, accusing Beijing of cultural genocide.

Shops, schools and businesses were open Monday in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, but tensions remained high throughout the territory and three neighboring provinces after days of deadly clashes.

Xinhua reported Monday that 160 locations in Lhasa were burned by rioters, including banks, a press establishment, shops, schools and hospitals. Watch Chinese police on the streets

The state-run news agency quoted police in Tibet giving protesters a deadline of midnight Monday to stop their criminal activities and offering leniency to those who surrender themselves.

Those who surrender and provide information on other lawbreakers will be exempt from punishment, Xinhua quoted a police notice as saying.

James Miles, a reporter for The Economist who arrived in Lhasa just before the violence began last week and has been allowed to stay, told CNN Monday that Lhasa was now quiet but damage was evident throughout the city.

The number of people killed Friday — and which side they were on — remained in dispute, but Miles said it appeared the dead included Tibetans as well as Han Chinese who operated businesses there.

Chinese security forces maintained a strong presence, checking identification papers of people on the streets, Miles said.

Phuntsok said the protesters wanted to destabilize Tibet at the critical and sensitive time that we are preparing for the Olympics.

There are 13 common people who died in the beating, burning and smashing in the riots, said Phuntsok. They died of fire, asphyxiation and beating. Some of them were set on fire by rioters and died in the burning.

He said Chinese police did not fire their guns or use anti-personnel weapons against the Tibetans despite 61 police officers being injured, six seriously. Watch riot police search homes

Tibetan exiles described a much more violent response by police.

A Xinhua story published Monday said the protesters had indisputable links to peace-preaching Dalai Lama.

Tibet is officially an autonomous region of China, but the Dalai Lama said that Tibetans are treated by the Chinese as second-class citizens in their own land. He said they need full autonomy to protect their cultural heritage.

Since Tibet fell under Communist Chinese control in the 1950s, Han Chinese have moved into the province to participate in the government and operate businesses.

Miles reported seeing incidents Friday of Tibetan crowds attacking Han Chinese residents with stones. He said many of the businesses burned by protesters belonged to Han Chinese.

Violent protests were reported at or near Tibetan monasteries outside of Lhasa and in three other nearby Chinese provinces on Friday and in the days since.

Tibetan monks at the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, Gansu province — 750 miles from Lhasa — apparently staged a protest Friday and Saturday that Chinese security forces acted quickly to stop.

Spence Palermo, a American who was filming a documentary at the monastery, said Chinese officials banned his crew from returning to the monastery Friday. They were suddenly rushed from their hotel Saturday as a seemingly endless convoy of Chinese troops headed toward the monastery, he said.

Newsweek magazine reported Monday that as many as 4,000 monks and lay persons clashed with police near the monastery Friday and Saturday.

Tibet Watch, a group based in Dharamsala, India, told CNN that 34 people have died in the Nwaga County area of Sichuan province in western China. The dead include women and children, the group said in an e-mail, adding they were killed by Chinese police attempting to stop the protests.

Eight bodies — including the bodies of two monks — were brought to the Nagaba Kirti monastery, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala told CNN.

Tibet Watch said another protest took place in Machu County in northwestern China Sunday. It was started by some Tibetan students distributing fliers. They were later joined by monks and laypeople. During the demonstration, several shops and a security headquarters were burned, the group said. An estimated 2,000 Tibetans were using firecrackers in the streets, the group said.

Chinese authorities have denied CNN permission to enter Tibet to report on the current situation.
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Bill Clinton: What happened in South Carolina a ‘myth’

(CNN) — Former President Bill Clinton defended his role in his wife’s presidential campaign in South Carolina, disputing claims he made race a campaign issue.

What happened there is a total myth and a mugging, Clinton told CNN’s Sean Callebs in New Orleans, Louisiana, over the weekend.

It’s been pretty well established. Charlie Rangel … the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in unequivocal terms in South Carolina that no one in our campaign played any race card, that we had some played against us, but we didn’t play any.

Bill Clinton was front-and-center of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in South Carolina, where he delivered full-throttle verbal attacks on rival Barack Obama.

The former president accused Obama of overstating his opposition to the Iraq war, complained about Obama’s union supporters in the Nevada caucuses and blasted his remarks on former President Reagan in a newspaper interview. Watch Bill Clinton talk about his role on the campaign trail

Bill Clinton also set off a firestorm of criticism for comments he made that were considered by some to be racially insensitive — like reminding people that Jesse Jackson won the state’s primaries in his unsuccessful runs for the nomination in the 1980s. The remark was widely seen as a suggestion that Obama’s success in the state was largely based on his race.

Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party and a supporter of Obama, said some of Clinton’s remarks were appeals based on race and gender.

He said the comments were meant to suppress the vote, demoralize voters and distort the record, and said they were reminiscent of Lee Atwater. Atwater was a hard-hitting Republican strategist who worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and whose tactics were reviled by many Democrats.

Bill Clinton adamantly denied he was playing racial politics. Hillary Clinton later offered regrets for her husband’s remarks, saying, If anyone was offended by anything that was said, whether it was meant or not, whether it was misinterpreted or not, then obviously I regret that.

Obama ended up winning South Carolina with a large majority of African-American voters, while most whites voted for Clinton or former Sen. John Edwards. South Carolina’s Democratic primary was January 26.

Bill Clinton insisted his role his his wife’s campaign has not changed since South Carolina. When asked if he was concerned that the contest was becoming more polarized, the ex-president said he expected it to happen.

Over the past year, Clinton has seen her support among African-American voters drop, while Obama has seen his climb.

In the Mississippi primary last week, black voters chose Obama over Clinton 9-1.

Clinton brushed aside notions African-Americans were casting an anti-Clinton vote in the primaries by voting for Obama.

Once African-Americans understood that they had a candidate with a serious chance to win the nomination and perhaps the presidency, then it was going to be a question of somewhere between 80 percent and 90 percent were going to support him except in areas where she had particularly strong profile, he said.

The fundamental fact is, most of the Democrats like both these candidates and they’re trying to figure out who would be the best president, who’s likely to do things or be what I need most in a president, and who’s most likely to win, he added.

Clinton was in New Orleans this weekend working with Brad Pitt on a foundation the actor heads to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
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Seven dead in Afghan suicide attack

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) — Four soldiers with the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan were killed Monday when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into their convoy, officials said.

The attack in the Helmand province in southern Afghanistan also killed three Afghans and wounded four other soldiers and several Afghans, officials said.

Two of the soldiers killed were Danes, a Danish military spokesman told CNN. The other soldier was from the Czech Republic, that country’s defense ministry said. The nationality of the ISAF employee who died was not immediately available.

The soldiers were part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), an alliance of about 40 nations charged with supporting the Afghan government in maintaining security. Most of the troops stationed in Helmand as part of the force are British.

Erik Boettger, the Danish military spokesman, said the convoy was on its way to monitor a school project when it was struck by the bomber’s vehicle.

Separately, another soldier with the NATO-led alliance was killed in an attack in Zangabad on Sunday. The Canadian soldier was on foot patrol when he was killed in an explosion, ISAF said. Zangabad is a village southwest of Kandahar city.

In recent months, attacks have shot up against coalition and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan. Helmand, Afghanistan’s top poppy-producing region, is among several provinces in southern Afghanistan where foreign troops continue to battle a resurgent Taliban.

U.S. troops are in their sixth year in Afghanistan battling the Taliban, the Islamic militia that once ruled most of Afghanistan, and its al Qaeda allies.
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Church: Obama ex-pastor is under unfair attack

Editor’s Note: The following report contains objectionable language.

(CNN) — The Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s former church criticized the news media Sunday for coverage of his sermons, saying in a statement that Wright’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere.

Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois, defended Wright, saying he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.

The statement came two days after Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a longtime friend of Wright and attendee of the church, denounced sermons that have become the subject of recent controversy. Obama called them inflammatory and appalling.

It is an indictment on Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite, the Rev. Otis Moss III, the current pastor of the church, said in the statement.

The African-American Church was born out of the crucible of slavery, and the legacy of prophetic African-American preachers since slavery has been and continues to heal broken, marginalized victims of social and economic injustices, Moss added.

This is an attack on the legacy of the African-American Church, which led and continues to lead the fight for human rights in America and around the world.

In the same statement, the Rev. John H. Thomas, the general minister and president of the United Church of Christ — the denomination to which Wright’s church belongs — said the news media were creating a caricature of his congregation.

It’s time for us to say ‘No’ to these attacks and declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends, Thomas said.

The sermons in question became the subject of scrutiny last week after being highlighted in an ABC News report.

At one December service, Wright argued Clinton’s road to the White House is easier than Obama’s because of her skin color.

Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single-parent home; Barack was, Wright says in a video of the sermon posted on YouTube. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary! Hillary ain’t never been called a ‘nigger!’ Hillary has never had her people defined as a non-person.

Wright, who retired this year from his post, also says in the video, Who cares about what a poor black man has to face every day in a country and in a culture controlled by rich white people?

In denouncing those sermons Friday, Obama defended his 20-year relationship with Wright, saying that the pastor has served him in a spiritual role — not a political one.
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Taiwanese rally ahead of presidential poll

TAINAN, Taiwan (AP) — Tens of thousands of Taiwanese waved banners and shouted political slogans Sunday, as the island’s rival parties rallied support ahead of the March 22 presidential elections.

The Taiwan-wide Super Sunday events were meant to energize supporters in the home stretch of a race that has so far lacked the passion and commitment of presidential elections in 2000 and 2004.

Chen Shui-bian will be replaced in May by either Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Nationalists, or Frank Hsieh of Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party.

In recent days, Ma and Hsieh have been jousting over who can best deal with China — the island’s biggest rival, and longtime nemesis of the independence-minded Chen.

Beijing claims self-ruled, democratic Taiwan is part of Chinese territory and should unify with the mainland.
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