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Hollywood Shapes China's Darfur Policy
Stars use Olympics as leverage to get China to protest genocide
By Peter Fearon
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Posted Apr 13, 07 9:08 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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China is finally joining the international outcry over genocide in Darfur—and it’s down to Hollywood clout, not Washington’s. Long one of Sudan’s closest protectors, China is suddenly calling on the government to accept UN peacekeepers. The reason, reports the Times: Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg are leading a charge to tie the Beijing Olympics to the country's policies on Sudan.
Farrow, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, recently called them the “Genocide Olympics” and warned Spielberg, artistic adviser to the Games, that he risked becoming “the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games,” a reference to the Nazi propagandist who filmed the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Spielberg in turn approached Chinese President Hu Jintao to help “bring an end to the human suffering” in Darfur.