Since China was awarded the Olympic Games in 2008, human rights organisations and politicians have applied pressure on the International Olympic Committee to use the Games as a lever to improve China’s human rights record. But what is the rationale for regarding the Olympics as a source for political and social change?

Organisers of the Olympic Games in Beijing have promised that foreign journalists can travel freely around China, interview who they want and enjoy uncenscored access to the Internet during the Games. New freer regulations on reporting in China up to and during the Olympics came into force on 1 January 2007 but the application of the new rules show that there is still some way between promises and reality.

Intense criticism has surrounded China’s planned route for the Olympic Torch relay prior to Beijing 2008. Human rights groups have also slammed China’s human rights record, their voices joined by US politicians who oppose China’s alleged sale of arms to Sudan.

China has long held a prominent position in the Western imagination. From Marco Polo onwards, China – or the Middle Kingdom – has been viewed as a mystical, unknown and unknowable place.

The small country of Panama currently has not only one but two different Olympic Committees. Which committee is the right one is difficult to say as an attempt to resolve the situation in December failed completely despite intervention from the IOC.

China has issued a new set of rules for foreign journalists who want to cover issues in China up to and during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. According to a spokesperson from the Foreign Ministry, foreign reporters will be allowed to travel anywhere in the country without prior permission from local authorities.

Cambodia has elected a new president of its national Olympic Committee to replace Prince Norodom Ranariddh who is accused of squandering the committee’s money on five star hotels. Earlier this year the country’s Prime Minister Hun Sen decided that the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports should supervise sport in the country, not the Olympic Committee.

The environmental organisation Greenpeace has filed a suit with Russia’s Supreme Court to block the construction of sporting facilities and infrastructure around the city of Sochi that is bidding to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Greenpeace wants to protect unique Alpine forest in the Western Caucasus which has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1999.