BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s United Nations envoy has rejected his U.S. counterpart’s remark that China’s choice of an ethnic Uyghur as a torchbearer for the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics was an attempt to distract from his country’s alleged rights abuses against Muslim minorities. Ambassador Zhang Jun said in a statement on the embassy’s website that China “sternly refutes” the “unwarranted accusations” made by U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield in an interview with CNN. Zhang said that Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a cross country skier born in Xinjiang, is…
