Olympic flame in Kazakhstan on start of 130-day tour
The Olympic torch has arrived in Almaty in Kazakhstan, its first stop in a tour of the world that will see it cross five continents before it returns to Beijing for the start of the Games in August.
The torch, which was lit last week in the small southwestern Greek town of Olympia, the ancient birthplace of the games, was relit on Monday in Beijing in a ceremony that was marked by a high-security presence as Chinese authorities looked to avoid protests over Tibet.
Eighty famous Kazakh athletes, culture activists and politicians will carry
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the torch along the streets of Almaty on April 2. The flame will then go on to Turkey, and then on April 5 to St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city. The flame is also due in London, Paris and San Francisco, among other cities.
Kazakhstan has issued a series of stamps dedicated to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing to mark the arrival of the Olympic torch in the former Soviet republic.
Pro-Tibetan protestors have pledged to meet the Olympic flame with demonstrations throughout its 137,000-kilometer (85,100-mile) journey. Rights groups are also expected to use the occasion to raise the issue of human rights in China, as well as the country's arms trade with Sudan.
There have been no reports so far of protests in Almaty.
Last Tuesday, the European Parliament's president spoke of the possibility of a boycott of the Games over China's heavy-handed response to recent protests in China.
"We must not exclude the possibility of a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. We want them [the Games] to be a success, but not at the expense of the cultural genocide of Tibetans," Hans-Gert Pottering said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
