Iconic director Steven Spielberg announced Tuesday that he’s ending his stint as an adviser for the 2008 Summer Olympics because of host country China’s refusal to help stop Sudan’s raids on Darfur. Spielberg, under pressure from activists like actress Mia Farrow to intervene with China regarding the controversial issue, had made efforts in the past year — including writing letters to Chinese leaders and meeting with the Chinese envoy to Darfur — but ultimately decided, he said in a statement issued to Chinese leaders, that his “conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual … Sudan’s government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering there. China’s economic, military and diplomatic ties to the government of Sudan continue to provide it with the opportunity and obligation to press for change.” A spokesperson at the Chinese Embassy in Washington responded: “As the Darfur issue is neither an internal issue of China nor is it caused by China, it is completely unreasonable, irresponsible and unfair to link the two as one” … Meanwhile, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds child star, Dakota Fanning, has done some dropping out of her own. Variety reports that Fanning and her younger actress sister, Elle Fanning, quit the upcoming drama My Sister’s Keeper after refusing a request to shave her head for the role. Cameron Diaz stars as the mother of two girls, an older one who’s sick and a younger one who sues for emancipation when she finds out her parents conceived her as a genetic match to try to save her older sister. Elle F. was set to play the younger sister; she’ll be replaced by Oscar-nominated Little Miss Sunshine star Abigail Breslin. Sofia Vassilieva (Medium) is in negotiations to replace Dakota F., whose last work was the infamous, and unreleased, Hounddog, in which she played a young girl who was raped. (movies)