Special report: 2008 Olympic Games

    By Sportswriter Ma Xiangfei

    BEIJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Olympic Truce Wall was launched here on Friday in the Olympic Village as senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials, the Beijing Olympic Games organizers and athletes signed on it to express their wish for a peaceful world.

    IOC president Rogge first signed in Chinese on the Wall, named the Wall for Peace and Friendship by the Beijing Games organizers.

    "The world today is a difficult place to live in. There are many conflicts between nations and there are civil wars within a single nation but there is an exception and the exception is the Olympic Village," said the IOC chief who arrived in Beijing on Thursday for the Aug. 8-24 Games.

    "While 205 national Olympic committees live together peacefully, irrespective of their ethnic origin or the gender, the culture, the language or the political system, this unity of mankind is very important singnal to the world," he said.

    "Two days ago we were able to invite the athletes from Iraq to participate in the Games," he continued.

    The Beijing Olympics' expectation to have a full-house gathering was endangered on when the IOC disqualified Iraq recently from participating in the Games because the Iraqi government dissolved the national Olympic body and appointed an interim group presided over by the Minister of Youth and Sports.

    But IOC lifted the ban on Tuesday night and four Iraqi athletes are expected to compete in Beijing now.

    The idea for building an Olympic Truce Wall was initiated in the Athens Olympic Games four years ago and this practice is expected to be followed in a bid to promote the ideal of peace through sport.

    Moreover, the 192-member UN General Assembly adopted unanimously a resolution in October last year, entitled "Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal", calling for truce during the Beijing Games.

    The resolution, submitted by China and cosponsored by 186 nations, urges member states to observe the Olympic Truce individually and collectively during the Olympic Games and the following Paralympic Games.

    UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday joined the IOC and the General Assembly in calling on all those who are at war to observe the Truce.

    "Such a truce, while limited in duration, can provide a pause in which to reconsider the heavy cost of war, as well as an opening to initiate a dialogue and a window to provide relief for suffering populations," Ban said.