Time Line Olympic Torch and Kenya

29 March 2008
Olympic Torch Goes Out, Briefly, in Paris

PARIS — China dubbed its Olympic torch relay the “Journey of Harmony,” a 21-nation promotional tour for the most expensive Games the world has seen and for a host nation eager to showcase its rising wealth and diplomatic clout.
But what was supposed to be a majestic procession through the French capital resulted in waves of chaos on Monday, as human rights groups used the event to assail China’s record on rights and make the Olympic Games an increasingly delicate political challenge for the governing Communist Party.
China has spent eight years and tens of billions of dollars preparing to host the Summer Games, which Beijing has envisioned as a kind of coming-of-age party to showcase its rapid growth. But the outbreak of violent unrest in Tibet and a continuing crackdown there by Chinese security forces has emboldened China’s critics, a diverse coalition of rights groups whose demands are often ignored in China and played down by Western leaders eager to promote Chinese trade and investment.

March 27 2008
Olympic Torch Begins Its Journey in Beijing

BEIJING — President Hu Jintao of China waved the Olympic torch at a ceremony in Tiananmen Square on Monday, smiling as balloons, streamers and confetti filled a mostly blue sky.
Then came the uncertain part. Mr. Hu sent the torch on a 130-day journey that includes places where protests and controversy most likely await. One eventual stop on what Beijing is calling a “Journey of Harmony” will be Lhasa, the Tibetan capital still simmering from violent antigovernment protests.




19 March 2008

Corporate Sponsors Nervous as Tibet Protest Groups Shadow Olympic Torch’s Run
The disruption of a Chinese official’s address during the Olympic torch lighting ceremonies in Greece last week was just the beginning of a string of protests planned to coincide with the torch’s trip around the globe.
Monday’s incident was “like lighting a fuse that is going to burn from now until the Olympics in Beijing,” said Paul Bourke, an officer of the Australian Tibet Council, a pro-Tibet group. The torch relay is “really giving a focus to groups like ours around the world for the next three months.”
Groups have decried China’s policies in other areas, particularly Darfur. But the pro-Tibet network, spread around the world, is more organized and interconnected than other groups, and advertising consultants and political scientists, say its influence is expected to keep the issue of autonomy and violence in Tibet front and center for weeks.
That is troubling news for sponsors of the torch relay, including Coca-Cola, Lenovo and Samsung Electronics. Advertising analysts estimate the companies have paid as much as $15 million each to sponsor the relay.

10 March 2008
China Won’t Alter Olympic Torch Path

BEIJING — Despite violent protests in Tibet, China remains steadfast in its plan to take the Olympic torch to Tibet and to Mount Everest, officials in the Beijing Olympics organizing committee said Wednesday.
The torch will be lighted in Athens on Monday and, after a global tour of 135 cities, is to reach the top of Mount Everest sometime in May, when the weather makes a safe ascent possible. Afterward, that Olympic flame, one of two that will be in China at that time, will be taken through Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, the site of deadly riots last week and a continuing Chinese crackdown.
Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the organizing committee, said at a news conference on Wednesday that International Olympic Committee rules allowed for a change or cancellation in the torch route in certain cities in the event of bad weather or other unfavorable conditions.

1 March, 2008
As Kenya Bleeds, Tourism Also Suffers in Land of Safaris

“It was wonderful,” she said. Not far away, Isaac Rotich, a high-end safari guide, paced an empty game lodge in freshly polished safari boots. He can spot a six-inch lizard 50 feet away, and tell you the name — in Kiswahili, English and Latin — of the plant it is sitting on. He has spent years building this career and was making $30,000 a year, a king’s ransom in these parts.
“It was wonderful,” she said.Not far away, Isaac Rotich, a high-end safari guide, paced an empty game lodge in freshly polished safari boots. He can spot a six-inch lizard 50 feet away, and tell you the name — in Kiswahili, English and Latin — of the plant it is sitting on. He has spent years building this career and was making $30,000 a year, a king’s ransom in these parts.

4 March, 2008
Kenyan Opposition Leader Says Foreign Pressure Must Continue

On Sunday, he went to the beach and was pictured on the front page of Kenya’s leading newspaper, The Daily Nation, lounging by the waves, wearing shorts and argyle socks.
On Monday, as he polished off a bowl of vegetable soup and sautéed fish at the Nairobi Club, he seemed relaxed, chatty and upbeat — for the first time in weeks.
“Better half a loaf than no bread,” Mr. Odinga said of a power-sharing agreement struck on Thursday that marries his political party to his rivals in the Kenyan government.
Mr. Odinga, 63, is Kenya’s top opposition leader, and his decision to drop his claim to Kenya’s presidency — which he says he rightly won — and to accept the newly created position of prime minister has helped pull this country back from the brink of chaos.

March 7, 2008
Kenyan Parliament Opens on Theme of Unity as Rivals Sit Apart

Politicians from the governing party and the opposition spoke sweet words of unity — but the top leaders continued to sit apart from one another in the chamber.
“Honorable members, you must now become the ambassadors of peace and reconciliation,” President Mwai Kibaki told the lawmakers. “Please forget the history of what has happened, not because you want to put it aside, but because you want to do something much better.”
This was the deal to bring peace back to Kenya, which had been considered one of the most stable countries in Africa before the violence of recent months.

March 29, 2008
Stalemate in Kenya Over Top Posts

NAIROBI, Kenya — Power-sharing in Kenya, apparently, is easier said than done.
Exactly one month after Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, and its top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, signed a power-sharing agreement in front of hundreds of cheering Kenyans and the world’s news media, the two remained deadlocked Friday over the formation of a new government.
Their agreement was supposed to usher in a “grand coalition,” billed as the only way to end two months of postelection bloodshed, ethnic tension and destruction that had turned Kenya, once a paradigm of stability, nearly upside down.
Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, who helped broker the agreement, was hailed as a national hero. Pictures of his goateed face have festooned matatus, the rugged little minibuses that prowl Kenya’s streets. A baby rhino has even been named after him.

March 2008

Out of trouble: How diplomacy brought peace to Northern Ireland

Commentators who have watched the conflict in Northern Ireland play out for decades call the peace process a miracle.
Culminating in a power sharing deal between Ulster's unionists, led by Ian Paisley, and Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA (nationalists), led by Gerry Adams, the road to peace has been a torturous one characterized by violence, set-backs and numerous false starts.
Only recently the Ulster Defence Association, Northern Ireland's largest loyalist group, said it will cease to be an armed paramilitary group, starting at midnight on November 11, saying the "war is over."
"All weaponry will be put beyond use," Colin Halliday of the Ulster Political Research Group, which is linked to the group, said in a speech in Belfast aired by RTE, Ireland's state-owned broadcaster. "The struggle to maintain the union is on a new and more complex battlefield."
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) disarmed two years ago, helping to restore the province's government in Belfast.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said the most recent moves of groups to disarm was "significant and hopefully signals a further step toward the ending of all paramilitarism in Northern Ireland."
For those that have lived through the turmoil in Northern Ireland, peace achieved though diplomacy must have seemed like an unrealistic goal. After all, each attack by loyalists usually resulted in retaliation by nationalists -- making the dispute bitter and intractable.
But diplomacy has worked in bringing peace to Northern Ireland.
Credit for developing a framework for the peace process stretches back to former British Prime Minster John Major's rule in the 1990s and efforts by Ireland's Ahern. But it was Major's successor, Tony Blair, who was unrelenting in his quest for peace by making it a major priority of his government.
Who: The Ulster Defence Association
Where: Northern Ireland
What: The Ulster Defence Association will cease to be an armed paramilitary group. "The struggle to maintain the union is on a new and more complex battlefield" said Colin Halliday of the Ulster Political Research Group.
Why: Because of each attack by loyalists usually resulted in retaliation by nationalists -- making the dispute bitter and intractable.
When: 19 March, 2008

Tibetans continue to defy China crackdown

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- New video from China suggests that security forces have yet to gain complete control of Tibet and neighboring provinces which have suffered eruptions of anti-Chinese violence since last week.
Film of a crowd -- some on horseback -- attempting to storm a government building has been shot by a Canadian television crew that managed to gain access to a Chinese town in Gansu province despite attempts by Chinese authorities to keep foreign media away from the region.
On Thursday, China acknowledged for the first time that anti-government riots that rocked Tibet last week have spread to other provinces, The Associated Press reported.
Also on Thursday, an international human rights group urged Nepal to stop doing Beijing's bidding and end its crackdown on Tibetan exiles protesting against China, AP reported.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Nepal "should cease arbitrary arrests and detentions, harassment, and the use of excessive force to silence Tibetan protesters, activists and journalists," AP reported
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says he is ready to talk to the Dalai Lama if the Tibetan spiritual leader renounces violence and demands for Tibetan independence.
Brown said he spoke with Wen on Wednesday, pressing his government for constraint in dealing with the protesters.
Who: Tibetans
Where: China
What: China suggests that security forces have yet to gain complete control of Tibet and neighboring provinces, the first time that anti-government riots that rocked Tibet last week have spread to other provinces. An international human rights group urged Nepal to stop doing Beijing's bidding and end its crackdown on Tibetan exiles.
Why: Because of anti-Chinese violence since last week and Tibetan exiles protesting against China.
When: 20 March, 2008

Cheney: Israel, Palestinians must make sacrifices for peace

RAMALLAH, West Bank (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday it will take "painful concessions" from both Israelis and Palestinians to achieve the Bush administration's vision of a Palestinian nation alongside Israel.
After meeting with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, Cheney reiterated that the administration wants to see an "independent, viable, democratic and peaceful Palestinian state."
"Achieving that vision will require tremendous effort at the negotiating table and painful concessions on both sides," Cheney said at the news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. "It will also require a determination to defeat those who are committed to violence and who refuse to accept the basic right of the other side to exist."
Abbas thanked Cheney for the administration's financial support and commitment to a two-state solution, but the two men had notably different views on the obstacles impeding the peace deal.
While Abbas cited Israeli military operations and settlement expansions as the major deterrents to peace, Cheney homed in on the rockets that have been hurtling into Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Speaking before Cheney delivered his remarks, Abbas said Israel was at least partly to blame for the lack of progress in peace talks.
Who: Palestinians
Where: Ramallah, Israel
What: "independent, viable, democratic and peaceful Palestinian state,” and Palestinian President said: "It will also require a determination to defeat those who are committed to violence and who refuse to accept the basic right of the other side to exist."
Why: For an "independent, viable, democratic and peaceful Palestinian state."
When: 23 March, 2008

Observers interpret Iraq cease-fire, Iran's role

(CNN) -- The deal to end the weeklong fighting in Iraq's Shiite regions appeared to be holding Monday, but left lingering questions about Iran's growing influence, the Iraqi government's military resolve and the chances for more intra-Shiite hostility.
Observers of the Iraqi conflict Monday offered fresh perspectives on the situation in the nation, where fighting raged in the Shiite-dominated south after the government last week launched an offensive in the city of Basra against what it called "outlaws."
The fighting -- much of which raged in strongholds of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia -- swiftly worked its way up to Baghdad. The violence subsided only after Shiite lawmakers traveled to Iran Friday to negotiate with Iranian officials and with al-Sadr, who later called on his followers to end violent battles in the country and to cooperate with the Iraqi security forces.
Senior U.S. military officials said the move doesn't solve the turf wars in the Shiite heartland and believe they could easily flare again. And it leaves Sadrists and others in control of large swaths of territory.
The government's Basra offensive, spearheaded by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, highlights the fledgling Shiite-dominated Iraqi government's efforts to engage militias on their own, the U.S. officials say. At the same time, it leaves al-Maliki in a precarious political position because he has staked his future on the offensive, and he has left himself little room to maneuver.
Who: Iraq and Iran
Where: Shiite regions
What: Military officials said the move doesn't solve the turf wars in the Shiite heartland . The violence subsided only after Shiite lawmakers traveled to Iran to negotiate with Iranian people.
Why: Because of the Iraqi conflict perspectives on the situation in the nation.
When: 29 March, 2008