Olympic torch run reaches Japan

TOKYO: The Olympic torch relay in Japan, originally to set off from a celebrated Buddhist temple, will instead start in a parking lot due to fears of anti-Beijing protests, officials decided Monday. The seventh-century Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, the mountain town that hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, withdrew from plans to be the start point for the Japanese leg of the relay next Saturday because of China's crackdown in Tibet. "We decided to change the starting point to a vacant lot which used to be the site of a municipal building," a Nagano municipal official told AFP.

"The reason is so we can minimise changes to the original relay plan while ensuring the security of the relay," he said. The Zenkoji Temple backed out of the relay on Friday due to objections over China's crackdown in predominantly Buddhist Tibet, which has seen its largest protests in two decades over Beijing's controversial rule. The temple, which draws six million visitors a year, said it has received some 100 phone calls, mostly supportive, of its decision to pull out.

But it was also vandalised with spray paint, with police investigating if there was a link to the Olympics. The global tour of the torch for August's Beijing Olympics has been dogged by protests since it was lit last month, most notably in London and Paris.