WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

The Daily Telegraph explains:

Officially described as “volunteers” by Beijing, the 30 blue track-suited guards were recruited from specialist squads in the People’s Armed Police (PAP), a one-million strong force dedicated to maintaining public order …

The hand-picked members of the “The Olympic Holy Flame Protection Unit” are all above 5ft 9in and underwent a rigorous training programme at the PAP special police academy in Beijing last August.

And The First Post adds more details:

Lord (Sebastian) Coe, the former gold medalist who runs the committee planning London’s 2012 Olympic Games, is one of many people questioning how the blue track-suited Chinese guards protecting the Olympic flame on its controversial world tour were allowed to manhandle people – and even scuffle with British police – in London this week.

Coe was overheard by Channel 4 News saying: “They tried to push me out of the way three times. They are horrible. They did not speak English… I think they were thugs.” He added that other cities on the route should “get rid of those guys”.

Konnie Huq, the former Blue Peter presenter who took part in the London stage, and was approached by protestors trying to grab the torch from her hands, described how the Chinese guards shouted orders at her and pushed her arm to make her lift the torch higher.

“They were very robotic, very full on, and actually I noticed them having skirmishes with our own police and the Olympic authorities before our leg of the relay, which was confusing,” she said…

Their fitness routine has included running 25 to 20 miles a day and most have martial arts expertise. All have scored highly in “political tests” – a euphemism for ideological training. Most important, they’ve had lessons from a physics teacher in how to keep a flame from going out.

When the squad was formed last August, their leader, Zhao Si, boasted to the Chinese media that the men’s “outstanding physical quality is not in the slightest inferior to that of specialised athletes.”

One city where they will not be welcome is Australia’s capital, Canberra, where the Olympic torch is due next Tuesday. “I have seen what occurred in London,” said Michael Phelan, Canberra’s police chief, “and I can tell you that type of security arrangement will not be occurring here.”

As the The Guardian’s leader will say tomorrow:

“The 30 officers of the “Holy Flame Protection Unit” should be withdrawn, and the torch be given a rest until the games begin.”

AP reports about the San Francisco masquerade:

The Olympic torch was rerouted away from thousands of demonstrators and spectators who crowded the city’s waterfront Wednesday to witness the flame’s symbolic journey to the Beijing Games.

The planned closing ceremony at the San Francisco Bay waterfront was canceled and another one was planned at San Francisco International Airport. Massive crowds had gathered at the waterfront to support and protest the flame.

The last-minute changes were made amid security concerns following chaotic protests over the torch in Paris and London.

Mayor Gavin Newsom told The Associated Press that the well choreographed fake-out was prompted by the size and behavior of the crowds amassing outside AT&T Park, site of the relay’s opening ceremony.

There was “a disproportionate concentration of people in and around the start of the relay,” he said in a phone interview, while traveling in a caravan that accompanied the torch.

Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original six-mile route nearly in half.

Then, at the opening ceremony, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a warehouse. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight.

Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to two runners away from protesters and media, and they began jogging toward the Golden Gate Bridge, in the opposite direction of the crowds awaiting its passing. Further confusion followed, with the torch convoy apparently stopped near the bridge before heading southward to the airport, where a closing ceremony on the tarmac was planned.

As the flame traveled toward the airport, news slowly dribbled through the crowds of more than 10,000 spectators and protesters gathered at the waterfront that the torch would not be headed there.

Well, it looks like the San Francisco Mayor and police were following orders from China.

As the San Francisco Chronicle s says:

The bait-and-switch was immediately blasted by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, a vocal critic of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration.

“Gavin Newsom runs San Francisco the way the premier of China runs his country – secrecy, lies, misinformation, lack of transparency and manipulating the populace,” Peskin said.

“He misled supporters and opponents of the run.

People brought their families and their children, and (mayoral officials) hatched a cynical plan to please the Bush State Department and the Chinese government because of the incredible influence of money.
“He did it so China can report they had a great torch run,” Peskin said.

“It’s the worst kind of government – government by deceit and misinformation.”

(Piocture by EPA/Sean Masterson)

You can watch LIVE streaming coverage here of the Olympic Torch run in San Francisco, beginning at 1 p.m. (Pacific Time) on Wednesday, April 9th.

And breaking news from London: Gordon Brown, UK’s Primer Minister, will NOT attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in China.

(Photo by AFP)