British politician heading to South America walking for peace

British politician Lord Bates will start his new journey of 3,000 km "Walk for the Olympic Truce" in April from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro to raise funds for Unicef.

Michael Bates, 55, a member of the Hourse of Lords, announced Thursday that he is setting out on a 3,000-km solo-walk from Buenos Aires, the host city for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games to Rio de Janeiro, the host city of the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The five-month journey will start on April 6 and finish on Aug. 22, and he will walk through four countries in South America, namely Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. His wife Li Xuelin, a Chinese from Zhejiang Province, will assist him during his walking.

The purpose for the walk this time is to raise awareness for the UN Olympic Truce and to raise funds for Unicef, Lord Bates said.

Prior to the press conference for the walk on Thursday, the 10 Downing Street announced his resignation as a Minister of State at the Home Office.

In a letter from British Prime Minister David Cameron, he wrote:"It must have been a very tough decision to decide to stand down - and a deeply personal one - but I understand completely your wish to pursue this venture and you do so with my warmest blessing."

"Your solo-walk from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro sounds like a hugely rewarding initiative - and a fitting addition to your already impressive efforts for the London 2012 Olympic truce," he wrote.

"With your Walk for Peace, you are carrying the spirit of the Olympic Truce into a world that needs the values of tolerance, solidarity and peace more than ever before," Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, wrote in a letter for Lord Bates.

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War, Lord Bates spent 71 days to complete his 1,700-km walk from Beijing to Hangzhou last year.

The "Walk for the Olympic Truce" will be his 7th walk for charities, he told Xinhua.

"It first came to me that I undertook a shorter walk to raise money for a local charity. I found just through walking amazing thing happened, which was I got attention because people covered it as it is unusual for politicians to do walking and also I raised funds for the charity, and it seems so effective," he said.

The tradition of the Olympic Truce dates back to the 8th century BC, in Ancient Greece. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) revived the ancient concept of the Olympic Truce with the view to protecting, as far as possible, the interests of the athletes and sport in general, and to encourage searching for peaceful and diplomatic solutions to the conflicts around the world.

"I think it's very frustrating for anyone in the world to see so much human suffering, misery, war and conflict. I kind of think about peace in the Middle East or anywhere else, but I can do a walk for peace and talk about peace, and raise money for people who are helping to relieve the suffering of people," he told Xinhua.

To solve the world's problems was too vast, but people could take individual actions to make some difference, he added.

He said the most serious conflict at the moment is in Syria, while there are many unseen conflicts in African countries as well.

"Mahatma Gandhi, who said 'Be the change that you wish to see in the world', inspired me. I'm just trying to do that, trying to talk about peace, to talk about the power of sport, rather than war, to talk about people being together and rather than against each other, and to raise money for people I'm helping," he said.

"We cannot solve all the problems, but we can, each individual, do something to make the world a better place," he added. Endit