As the 2008 Olympic Games closed on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times said: "They were a triumph of the will for a people and a government determined to show their skill and confidence, as both athletes and organisers, to a world that once treated China as a weak, servile nation." The Washington Times said that while outsiders might wonder whether spending $44 billion on the Beijing Games could be justified: "most Chinese, like 21-year-old Wu Bo, a university student from eastern Anhui province on his first trip to the capital, see no need for even the most cursory of postmortems. They made up their minds two weeks ago. " 'These Olympics have been the most successful in history, and coming to see them has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,' said Mr Wu, as he took a picture of a leafy replica of the Great Wall that has been erected in the downtown area. " 'Cost just isn't an issue, because hosting the Olympics is a long-term plan for the whole of China. The stadiums will be used again. The economy will be boosted, and the Olympics will have consolidated China's international status.' " The Washington Post said: "The Chinese never tried to hide how much a 'successful' Olympics meant to them, which they defined, in part, as one unblemished by reality. Attempts at protest were quashed; unsightly houses were bulldozed or hidden behind new fences draped with banners; restaurants were told to remove dog meat from menus. Many tourists have been all too cognizant of what is going on. In some cases, they recoiled from Chinese efforts at control, such as the legions of overeager volunteer squads, always smiling but often firmly preventing tourists from going places they want to go. " 'It's very oppressive here,' complained John Janssens, 34, as the Brussels native sat in a square on the Olympic Green, eating takeout spicy noodles before heading to the Bird's Nest for a hurdles final. 'They make too much effort to make everything perfect.' "Mark Wilson, a 25-year-old technology consultant from London, said he had expected the Chinese would be friendly but had not expected to feel the same pressure to be nice. 'I constantly get the feeling that I shouldn't say anything that could be a slur against China. I feel a lot of pressure to "get" the image,' Wilson said. 'I'd like to come back after the Olympics and see what it's really like.' " McClatchy Newspapers reported: "While US athletes have stayed silent about politics during these Olympic Games, their actions have spoken volumes. "First came the decision by US team captains to pick runner Lopez Lomong, who was a Sudanese war refugee, to lead the US delegation into the Aug 8 opening ceremony as the team's flag bearer. "Many interpreted Lomong's selection as a dig at the Chinese government's support of Sudan, which has armed militias that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in the country's Darfur region. "On Friday night, the US team entered the political fray again by choosing archer Khatuna Lorig, who was born in what is now the country of Georgia, to be the US flag bearer in Sunday's closing ceremony." In an editorial, The New York Times said: "To win the right to host these Games, China promised to honour the Olympic ideals of nonviolence, openness to the world and individual expression. Those promises were systematically broken, starting with this spring's brutal repression in Tibet and continuing on to the ugly farce of inviting its citizens to apply for legal protest permits and then arresting them if they actually tried to do so. "Along the way, government critics were pre-emptively rounded up and jailed, domestic news outlets tightly controlled, foreign journalists denied full access to the Internet and thousands of Beijing's least telegenic residents were evicted from their homes and out of camera range. On Friday, the Chinese police confirmed that six Americans protesting China's rule in Tibet had been sentenced to 10 days of detention. "Surely one of the signature events of these Games was the sentencing of two women in their late 70s to 're-education through labour.' Their crime? Applying for permission to protest the inadequate compensation they felt they had received when the government seized their homes years ago for urban redevelopment." As the handover of Olympic hosts goes from Beijing to London, The Washington Post noted: "This week, a hero's welcome awaits Team GB (as its Olympians are known), which will be flown home on a British Airways 747 with its nose painted gold in honor of Britain's best Olympic showing in a century. "Some are hailing Britain's performance at the Beijing Games - in fourth place through Saturday's events with 47 medals, including 19 golds - as the 'Great Haul of China.' "And with it, the country that had grown inured to its also-ran status on the world's playing fields has developed a swagger, giddy over what its athletes achieved in Beijing and what that portends for 2012, when London will host the Olympics."
Breaking the Gaza siege
"Israel's decision to allow two boats carrying international activists into Gaza's port on Saturday was a 'one-time' event and did not constitute a decision by the government to allow sea access to the blockaded Palestinian territory," The Jersualem Post reported. "Carrying foreign activists from the US-based Free Gaza Movement, the two boats set sail from Cyprus on Friday and arrived in Gaza on Saturday. They received a warm welcome from thousands of jubilant Palestinians after a voyage marred by communications troubles and rough seas. "The 46 activists from 14 countries include an 81-year-old Catholic nun and Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair. The organisations participating in the Free Gaza movement include the International Solidarity Movement." Ynet said: "Prof Jeff Halper, a former anthropology lecturer at the Ben Gurion University and the head of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, was the only Israeli aboard the human rights boat which made its ways to the Gaza Strip shores on Saturday. "In a phone interview with Ynet, Halper spoke about the reasons which motivated him and other left-wing activists to try and break the siege on the Strip: 'There are people here yearning to live in peace with us, yearning for freedom. " 'All these restrictions, they're not just for security reasons, they're symptomatic to something much, much deeper.' " Al Jazeera reported: "Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader and dismissed Palestinian prime minster, called on the world to follow the example of the international activists movement and 'break the siege on Gaza'. " 'We deeply appreciate and salute the activists on the two boats', Haniya told Al Jazeera in a phone interview. "Haniya said that it was time for Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing and end the siege once and for all." Haaretz said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also praised the activists. AFP reported: "Arab League chief Amr Mussa on Sunday hailed the 'daring step' taken by pro-Palestinian activists whose boats docked in the Gaza Strip despite a tight Israeli blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory. " 'The act of protest against the Gaza blockade and the solidarity shown by these pro-Palestinian activists sends a strong message highlighting the suffering endured by the people of Gaza,' Mussa said in a statement. "The head of the pan-Arab body said he hoped this was the beginning of a wider movement by campaigners from around the world to express their rejection of a blockade he said violated international humanitarian law." Reporting for Time magazine from Gaza City, Tim McGirk said: "The cruise into Gaza was bracingly celebrity-free. As Jeff Halper, the sole Israeli aboard the 'Free Gaza' flotilla, says: 'We didn't have anybody famous. It was old-fashioned "people power." We just wanted to show what happens when ordinary people from around the world get together to try breaking this immoral siege on Gaza.' "
Iraqi government wants to break up the Sunni Awakening movement
"An emboldened Iraqi government has launched an aggressive campaign to disband a US-funded force of Sunni Arab fighters that has been key to Iraq's fragile peace, arresting prominent members and sending others into hiding or exile as their former patrons in the American military reluctantly stand by," the Los Angeles Times reported. "The Shiite Muslim-led government has long distrusted the fighters, many of whom are former insurgents. Senior Shiite politicians label some of the members murderers, and warn that there is no long-term obligation to employ them after their units are disbanded. " 'The ones in Baghdad and Diyala province just changed their T-shirts. There are large numbers who were really al Qa'eda. We have to really look hard for those elements without blood on their hands,' said Haidar Abadi, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party. The New York Times reported from Kirkuk that: "a suicide bombing killed at least five people and wounded at least seven, including Abdul Kareem Ahmed al-Obaydi, a prominent member of the American-backed Sunni forces known as Awakening Councils. "The bomber detonated an explosives-filled vest inside an automobile dealership in a southern area of the city, according to Maj Salih al-Lihabi of the Kirkuk police. "Mr Obaydi, the leader of the Awakening movement in Diyala Province, his son and two bodyguards were killed when the bomb exploded, a few minutes after 7 pm."