Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the man who disrupted a speech by the premier had exhibited “despicable behaviour”.

China’s reaction was far harsher than when two shoes were thrown at former US President George W Bush.

A 27-year-old man has been charged with committing a public order offence following the incident in the UK.

British apology

The shoe was thrown at Premier Wen while he was giving a speech at Cambridge University on the global economy.

It missed its intended target and barely disrupted the premier’s speech, but that has not prevented China from issuing an angry statement.

“The Chinese side has expressed its strong feelings against the occurrence of the incident,” spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement.

She said the British government had already apologised for the protester’s “despicable behaviour”, an act that would not affect bilateral ties.

Chinese internet users were less diplomatic when expressing their anger.

“I think the guy was very stupid. He accused the premier of being a dictator. This to me has no logic,” said one, who appeared to have had a ticket to the event.

“Is this the quality of students at Cambridge, a university with 800 years of history?” asked another.

The Chinese government’s response stands in sharp contrast to the more humorous reaction to the incident involving George Bush in Iraq.

Mr Bush was on a farewell trip when a local journalist threw two shoes at the then US president. Throwing shoes is an insult in the Middle East.

When asked a question about the incident at a press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said state leaders should be respected.

But – to laughter – he added: “Next time I should watch out for not only [those] who are raising their hands, but also [those] who are untying their shoelaces.”

Sole-searching

The BBC asked spokeswoman Jiang Yu about the different responses. “Both our comments are proper,” she replied.

China’s media outlets also seem to think this incident, where a sports shoe was thrown, is less funny than the one Mr Bush had to deal with.

When that happened, witty headlines such as, “Shoe attack leads to sole-searching” appeared in the Chinese press.

But there was no humour in reports about Premier Wen’s speech, which was the top story for China’s main broadcaster, China Central Television.

The shoe-throwing incident received little comment – and was referred to simply as “a disturbance”. The shoe itself was not mentioned.

Mr Wen also had to brave pro-Tibet supporters on his three-day visit to the UK.

The man charged in connection with the incident is due to appear before Cambridge magistrates next week.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Chinese anger at UK shoe-thrower

Its fighters launched dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortars at Israel and seized two more soldiers and killed eight others in cross-border raids.

It was seen as a dramatic gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians, but Israel’s response was far more dramatic and devastating to Lebanon.

Hezbollah said it wanted to exchange the two soldiers for thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli detention.

What it got was a 34-day onslaught from the Israeli military, costing more than 1,000 lives, mostly Lebanese civilians.

About 160 Israelis were killed, mostly soldiers, in fighting and rocket fire from Hezbollah. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced on either side.

Events in Lebanon during the summer of 2006 ended up completely overshadowing what had been going on in Gaza.

Intense speculation

We are now nearly two weeks into Israel’s campaign to hit the Hamas militant movement in Gaza, an attempt to reduce rocket fire by Palestinian militants.

The news of rockets being fired from Lebanon will have raised alarm of a possible serious escalation in this bloody New Year period.

Intense speculation has focused on whether or not Hezbollah was responsible for Thursday’s rocket fire or whether it was Palestinian militant groups in exile in refugee camps in Lebanon.

Most analysts have concluded it is unlikely to be Hezbollah – despite recent fiery rhetoric from the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah about the possibility of renewed conflict with Israel.

For a start, there has been no Hezbollah claim of responsibility, which is not the group’s usual style.

It has a reputation, even among Israelis, for being the most credible conveyor of information about its activities – when it chooses to convey such information.

Political timing

There is also the question of the scale of the attack – so far it is much smaller than in July 2006, and it is widely thought that Hezbollah would be capable of a much heavier blow if it had wanted.

The rockets seem to be short-range, and probably were fired from south of the Litani river, which is under control of the Unifil peacekeeping force and the Lebanese regular army.

It has been like this since the 2006 ceasefire which determined an end to all armed activity by militants between the Litani and the Israeli border.

It is widely assumed that Hezbollah still operates under cover in this area, but it is doubtful at this time that they would attempt such a blatant challenge to UN authority.

This is because the group is now part of the Lebanese government – with a power of veto on legislation – so it would be unlikely to want to jeopardise that position.

Another question regarding such attacks is whether Hezbollah somehow assisted, as they are launched from an area where – by reputation – not a leaf can move without its people knowing about it.

If so, the latest attack may be a way for Hezbollah to show solidarity with Gaza without provoking a massive Israeli retaliation.

After all, last year Israeli officials threatened that any attack from Hezbollah would trigger that would a retaliation against all of Lebanon that would make 2006 seem mild.

Difficult terrain

So who would attack Israel like this? Lebanon plays host to 400,000 Palestinian refugees, a reservoir of anger and militancy fuelled by 60 years of exile from what they consider as their land.

There are large refugee camps around Tyre and Sidon in southern Lebanon and militant groups have been known to launch rockets at Israel.

The last occasion of rocket fire was in January 2008, which was linked to the visit of US President George W Bush to Israel.

Hezbollah denied responsibility for that attack and the Israeli military blamed an unnamed Palestinian organisation.

But the incident showed the Unifil/Lebanese army regime was not in total control south of the Litani – notoriously difficult terrain to secure completely, as the Israeli army found to its cost during its long occupation of the area.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Who is behind the Lebanon rockets?

At an interfaith meeting at the United Nations, Mr Peres told King Abdullah he hoped his would be the “prevailing voice of the whole region”.

The Saudi plan, proposed in 2002, calls for Israel to withdraw from occupied land in exchange for Arab recognition.

King Abdullah organised the two-day conference in New York to promote a dialogue on religion and culture.

He told the meeting of world leaders that it was time to learn the lessons of the past.

“Terrorism and criminality are the enemies of each and every religion and civilisation,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.

“They wouldn’t have appeared had it not been for the upset of the principles of tolerance.”

Highly symbolic

When Mr Peres took to the floor, he broke off from his prepared speech to address King Abdullah directly.

“Your Majesty, the king of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “I was listening to your message. I wish that your voice will become the prevailing voice of the whole region, of all people. It’s right. It’s needed. It’s promising.

“The initiative’s portrayal of our region’s future provides hope to the people and inspires confidence in the nations.”

Diplomats described it as a highly symbolic moment, the BBC’s UN correspondent, Laura Trevelyan, said.

The question is whether it means anything for the Middle East peace process, she adds.

Mr Peres told reporters afterwards that he believed they were a step closer to that goal, while acknowledging there were still significant obstacles to overcome.

“I don’t deny there are open and difficult questions, but if there is a will – as the Arabs are saying – there is a way. What was today demonstrated was the will. We know that we have to work for the way.”

UN Secretary-General, the outgoing US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are among the world leaders attending the conference.

The event has been criticised by human rights groups who say it gives a platform to Saudi Arabia, which practices the strict Wahabi branch of Islam and allows no other form of public worship. Rights groups also strongly criticise the kingdom’s general human right record.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush believed “the king of Saudi Arabia has recognised that they have a long way to go and that he is trying to take some steps to get there”.

BBC NEWS

Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he graduated from college, accepting his first post in New Delhi. In the foreign ministry he established a reputation for modesty and competence.

Ban was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 2006. In February 2006 he began to campaign for the office of Secretary-General. Ban was initially considered to be a long shot for the office. As foreign minister of Korea, however, he was able to travel to all of the countries that were members of the United Nations Security Council, a manoeuvre that turned him into the campaign’s front runner.

On 13 October 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On 1 January 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan, and passed several major reforms regarding peacekeeping and UN employment practices. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with U.S. President George W. Bush, and Darfur, where he helped persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.

Background Of Ban Ki Moon

Childhood

Ban, the oldest of six children, was born in Eumseong in a small farming village in North Chungcheong, in 1944, while Korea was forcibly occupied by Japan. When he was three, his family moved to the nearby town of Chungju, where he was raised. During Ban’s childhood, his father had a warehouse business, but the warehouse went bankrupt and the family lost its middle-class standard of living. When Ban was 6, his family fled to a remote mountainside for the duration of the Korean War. After the war, his family returned to Chungju. The U.S. military troops in Korea were the first Americans whom Ban ever met.

Term as Secretary-General
When Ban became Secretary-General, The Economist listed the major challenges facing him in 2007: “rising nuclear demons in Iran and North Korea, a haemorrhaging wound in Darfur, unending violence in the Middle East, looming environmental disaster, escalating international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the spread of HIV/AIDS. And then the more parochial concerns, such as the largely unfinished business of the most sweeping attempt at reform in the UN’s history.” Before starting, Kofi Annan shared the story that when the first Secretary-General Trygve Lie left office he told his successor, Dag Hammarskjöld, “You are about to take over the most impossible job on earth.”

On 23 January 2007 Ban took office as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ban’s term as Secretary-General opened with a flap. At his first encounter with the press as Secretary-General on 2 January 2007, he refused to condemn the death penalty imposed on Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi High Tribunal, remarking that “The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member State to decide.” Ban’s statements contradicted long-standing United Nations opposition to the death penalty as a human rights concern. He quickly clarified his stance in the case of Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, two top officials who were convicted of the deaths of 148 Shia Muslims in the Iraqi village of Dujail in the 1980s. In a statement through his spokesperson on 6 January, he “strongly urged the Government of Iraq to grant a stay of execution to those whose death sentences may be carried out in the near future.” On the broader issue, he told a Washington, D.C. audience on 16 January 2007 that he recognized and encouraged the “growing trend in international society, international law and domestic policies and practices to phase out eventually the death penalty.”

On the tenth anniversary of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s death, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed 15 April 2008 for the senior leaders of the regime to be brought to justice. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia-tribunal, which was established by both the United Nations and Cambodia, which became operational in 2006, is expected to continue until at least 2010.

Ban Ki-moon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — signed the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which they pledged to negotiate steps on scrapping their nuclear weapons.

While most of the 192 U.N. member states have signed the pact, U.N. officials and signatories without atomic weapons have long complained the five nuclear powers have yet to abandon their warhead stocks.

India, Pakistan and Israel are also widely seen as unofficial members of the nuclear club. North Korea held a nuclear test in 2006 and Western nations believe that Iran is following in Pyongyang’s footsteps, a charge Tehran denies.

“Nuclear weapons produce horrific, indiscriminate effects. Even when not used, they pose great risks,” Ban told a conference organized by the East-West Institute.

“Accidents could happen any time. The manufacture of nuclear weapons can harm public health and the environment,” he said. “Of course, terrorists could acquire nuclear weapons.”

While most countries have no plans to obtain atomic weapons, Ban said some still viewed possession of such weapons as a status symbol. He gave no examples.

“Some states view nuclear weapons as offering the ultimate deterrent of nuclear attack, which largely accounts for the estimated 26,000 that still exist,” Ban said. He added the world remained concerned about North Korea and Iran.

BAN’S DISARMAMENT PROPOSALS

Arms control experts have also criticized U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration for refusing to join the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, banning nuclear tests, and launching research on new types of atomic weapons.

They say that sends the wrong signal to countries like Iran and North Korea, which feel threatened by Washington.

A U.S. official who requested anonymity said: “We appreciate the secretary-general’s comments, but our policy remains clear. The U.S. does not support the CTBT and will not become a party to it. The U.S. continues to maintain a moratorium on nuclear tests, and urges other states to do likewise.”

The Bush administration has declined to submit the treaty for Senate ratification, saying it does not want its options limited by such a pact.

To help end the impasse on disarmament, Ban presented a number of proposals in his speech, including:

- The nuclear weapon states should keep their promises to launch negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament;

- The permanent Security Council members should open discussions on security issues related to disarmament and should try to assure countries without atomic weapons they will never be subjected to a nuclear attack;

- The CTBT should be brought into force and efforts should be made to establish nuclear weapon free zones around the world, including in the Middle East;

- New efforts should be made to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological arms, to prevent terrorists from getting WMD and to limit conventional arms production and trade.

Ban also said he supported the idea of the U.N. General Assembly holding a world disarmament summit.

Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, told reporters Moscow would need time to study Ban’s proposals before reacting to them. (Editing by Peter Cooney)

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