Sharon Stone not on China film festival guest

Movie actress Sharon Stone will not be invited to next week's Shanghai Film Festival, state media said on Wednesday, as the row over her "bad karma" comments about last month's earthquake shows no sign of going away.

Media reports had said the film festival would ban Stone from attending its events on a permanent basis, but an official from the organising committee said merely that "she is not among the list of guests to be invited", the China Daily said.

The 50-year-old star of "Basic Instinct" attended last year's festival as the image ambassador for the French cosmetic giant Christian Dior, which has since pulled advertisements featuring Stone from stores across China.

In Stone's initial remarks made on the red carpet at the Cannes film festival, she called the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism -- whom China reviles as a traitor -- a "good friend".

After mentioning the Tibet unrest she said: "And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and I thought, is that karma -- when you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?"

Chinese bloggers, who were particularly active in criticizing the West over its attitude towards Tibet, exploded in anger over Stone's comments. More than 69,000 people died in the May 12 earthquake.

Stone later apologized.