China delays foreign media trip to Tibet to cover Olympic torch relay
Posted: 22 April 2008 1847 hrs

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BEIJING: Beijing Olympics officials Tuesday postponed a trip by foreign journalists to Tibet to cover the Olympic torch's ascent of Mount Everest and said their time in the restive region would be limited.

Officials with the Beijing Olympics organising committee cited "weather" reasons for the last-minute change, but it comes amid continued reports of unrest in the Himalayan region.

"The field command centre has not given us the go-ahead due to weather. So you have to wait in Beijing for now," Shao Shiwei, a Beijing Games official, told reporters during a briefing on the Everest plans.

Reporters were to have left Beijing for Lhasa on Tuesday and gradually acclimatise while making their way to Mount Everest's base camp at 5,150 metres (16,896 feet) above sea level.

Under the plan set months ago, they were then to wait an unspecified length of time until weather allowed the summit attempt, targeted for early to mid-May.

However, reporters will now be kept in Beijing until the ascent begins, and taken on a 2-3 day trip straight to base camp, said Shao, the organising committee's deputy director of media relations.

They would be in Tibet for only "seven to 10 days", according to the amended plan, he said.

The officials denied the sudden change was aimed at preventing journalists from reporting on the unrest in Tibet, where riots against Chinese rule broke out in Lhasa on March 14 and spread across the Tibetan plateau.

However, Shao said there would be no reporting on anything other than the torch.

"There will be no other reporting activities besides the torch," he said.

The torch is not the same one which has been travelling around the world, but a replica specifically designed for the Everest leg.

Shao and other officials shrugged off reporter's concerns that travelling too quickly to the high-altitude base camp could cause health problems.

China has clamped massive security on Lhasa and a huge swathe of the plateau and has barred foreigners from the region since the unrest began. - AFP/ac