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.