German Willi Lemke has been appointed as the new United Nations special adviser on sport. Lemke’s first act as adviser will be to visit Tibet, where violent confrontation between proponents and opponents of Tibetan autonomy has sparked fierce debate over a boycott of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

With less than six months to the start of the Beijing Olympic Games, the Chinese government is failing in its pledge to allow free access to foreign journalists.

Tokyo’s bid to stage the Olympic Games in 2016 could be derailed over the ongoing argument in Asian Handball over qualification for the Beijing Games. Kuwaiti prince Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, president of both the Asian Handball Federation and the Olympic Council of Asia, revoked his endorsement for the Japanese capital as a result of Japanese involvement in the argument.

If there is one subject in which Play the Game is well versed, it is the use of illegal drugs in sport. Day three of the 2007 conference saw veteran anti doping campaigner Sandro Donati calling for radical new thinking to encourage a doping-free sports culture.

On 20th of August, some 2000 Kosovar athletes from various sports disciplines in their sports uniforms protested in the main central square of Prishtina, Mother Theresa, on the grounds of being discriminated against in competing at an international level. Now, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo has set up a working group to examine the situation.

Tibetans are increasingly using sports as a means of resisting the Chinese occupation of Tibet. So far it has led to diplomatic headaches in India where authorities have tried to stop sport events for Tibetans, and in Switzerland the president for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) must figure out what to do about a letter from a new National Olympic Committee for Tibet.

China is yet to live up to its Olympic pledge of free media access. Findings from a survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China show that government interference is still commonplace for overseas journalists, while Reporters Without Borders, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists and other rights groups, all highlight the dangerous position of domestic journalists.

The International Olympic Committee does not want to get involved with the general human rights situation in China. But now, human rights organisations try to engage the IOC in alleviating human rights problems that are a direct consequence of China’s preparations for the Games or occur in the name of the Olympics.