Photographer of iconic Tank Man passes away
JAKARTA/HANOI: Charlie Cole, one of the photographers who captured the famous ‘Tank Man’ on film during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, has died. He was 64.
He died last week in Bali, Indonesia, where he had been residing, the BBC reported on Friday.
Cole was one of four photographers who captured the image on June 5, 1989, of a man standing in the way of a column of tanks, a day after many people died.
Cole won the 1990 World Press Photo award for his picture which became a defining image of the 1989 pro-democracy protests.
He took his picture for Newsweek with a telephoto lens from the balcony of a hotel, framing it so the man was only just in the bottom left corner.
Cole later described how he had expected the man would be killed, and felt it was his responsibility to record what was happening. But the unidentified protester was pulled away from the scene by two men. What happened to him remains unknown.
VIETNAM ASKS CHINESE SHIPS TO LEAVE
The government of Vietnam on Friday demanded the immediate withdrawal of a Chinese oil exploration vessel and its escorts from an area that Hanoi claims as its territory and is disputed by Beijing.
“Vietnam demands China to immediately stop its serious violations and withdraw all of the vessels from Vietnamese waters,” foreign ministry spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang tweeted.
“The ship (Haiyang Dizhi 8) continues to infringe Vietnam’s sovereignty, sovereign rights, EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) and continental shelf,” she added, having already expressed Hanoi’s opposition to the passage of Chinese ships on Thursday.
China claims sovereignty over the South China Sea region, a significant maritime area situated on a trade route and has vast reserves of natural resources.