China summons CNN Beijing chief over commentator's remarks (AP)

BEIJING - China rejected on Thursday CNN's response to its demand for an apology over remarks made by commentator Jack Cafferty after the Foreign Ministry summoned the network's bureau chief in Beijing the night before.

The demand came amid increasing accusations in China against foreign media over allegedly biased coverage of violent anti-government protests in Tibet and across western part of the country last month.

CNN has been singled out by the Chinese government and unknown activists who have phoned and e-mailed death threats to Western reporters. Most of the criticism of the Atlanta-based network concerns a photograph posted on its Web site weeks ago which cropped out Tibetans throwing stones at Chinese security forces.

CNN said Wednesday that commentator Jack Cafferty was referring to China's leaders -- not the Chinese people -- when he described them as a "bunch of goons and thugs," and apologized to anyone who thought otherwise.

However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao rejected the apology and demanded CNN and Cafferty retract the remarks and "sincerely apologize to the entire Chinese people," according to a statement on the ministry's Web site

CNN Beijing bureau chief Jaime FlorCruz said he met with Liu Wednesday night but gave no details.

The famously curmudgeonly Cafferty had been speaking during an April 9 appearance on "The Situation Room," according to a transcript posted on the CNN Web site.

"I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years," he said.

CNN has already pointed out a clarification Cafferty made Monday on show. "I was referring to the Chinese government, and not to Chinese people or to Chinese-Americans," he said of his "goons and thugs" comment.

"It should be noted that over many years, Jack Cafferty has expressed critical comments on many governments, including the U.S. government and its leaders," CNN's statement said.

Chinese at home and abroad have accused Western media of unjustly criticizing Chinese security forces for cracking down on protesters.

Angry protests by Tibetans, free-speech advocates and others dogging the Beijing Olympic Torch's passage through London and Paris have further stirred the anger. Thousands of foreign reporters are expected to be in Beijing to cover the August Games.

Numerous Web postings, YouTube videos and Facebook groups have criticized the Tibet news coverage, including a Web site called anti-cnn.com, which was set up especially to point out alleged media bias.

The entirely state-controlled media has joined in the vilification campaign, with the criticisms of CNN featuring prominently in Thursday's newspapers and TV shows.

A signed editorial in the Communist Party's flagship People's Daily attacked what it called Cafferty's "verbal violence."

"When people wake up and face the facts, there will be no more market for "information terrorism," the editorial said.

The editorial page of the English-language China Daily was two-thirds filled with attacks on Western media and exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, accused by Beijing of orchestrating deadly riots in Tibet's capital Lhasa and elsewhere. The Dalai Lama's India-based government-in-exile has denied the accusations and renewed appeals -- echoed by a host of foreign leaders -- for dialogue with Beijing.