Guess who's not invited to the Olympics?

By Benjamin Kang Lim BEIJING (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama may be the guest of honor of President George W. Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders, but you won't find Tibet's exiled spiritual leader on the Beijing Olympics guest list. Also missing from the list is Ma Ying-jeou, the Harvard-educated, democratically elected president of self-ruled Taiwan which Beijing has claimed as its own since their split in 1949 amid civil war, despite a recent thaw in relations. The Dalai Lama's appearance could have helped repair China's international image, which was dented by a government crackdown following rioting among Tibetans in March -- the worst in the Himalayan region since 1989. But China fears he would steal Chinese President Hu Jintao's thunder. "It's supposed to be Hu Jintao's Olympics, but it'll become... [read full story]