Joined: 09 Apr 2004 Posts: 3437 Location: Sao Paulo Country:
Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:18 am Post subject:
Jav_sol wrote:
You know I find it kinda unfair that Rio won. I don't have anything against the city but the Pan American games were held there in 2007. Brazil will host the FIFA World Cup in 2014. And now they get the Olympics. I don't know it just feels like their getting a lot of events.
And we don�Lt have here enough money to afford it all, believe me ...
Quote:
I think theyre gonna need it.
Sure that. And that�Ls not the only issue to be solved until 2016... _________________
Rio can develop most of the things they planned but social problems cannot be solved so easily. Yesterday people destroyed a broken train and several stations. Breaking things did not solve the problems, and in Brazil people usually do it. A common thing on holidays is a mass group of pickpockets attacking people around the beach.
Rio can develop most of the things they planned but social problems cannot be solved so easily. Yesterday people destroyed a broken train and several stations. Breaking things did not solve the problems, and in Brazil people usually do it. A common thing on holidays is a mass group of pickpockets attacking people around the beach.
Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 2785 Location: Lawwwng Guy-islind, Nu Yawk Country:
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:19 am Post subject:
Hiroshima and Nagasaki will bid for 2020 Summer Olympics
TOKYO (AP) -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- site of atomic bombings in World War II -- are teaming up to make a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics that will emphasize world peace.
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba and Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue announced on Sunday that they will form a joint bid committee. The mayors are founding members of the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign, which advocates for a global ban on nuclear arms.
"The Olympics symbolize the abolition of nuclear arms and world peace, and we want to work to realize our plan to host the games," Akiba said.
Taue added: "It will be a new challenge for the atomic-bombed cities."
The announcement comes a little more than a week after Tokyo lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Tokyo organizers have not indicated whether they will bid again.
Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara made headlines last week when he blamed his city's failure on Japanese sports officials' shortcomings in maneuvering the inner workings of the International Olympic Committee. Officials from Rio's bid described Ishihara's comments as "inappropriate."
Tokyo spent $166 million to promote itself for the games.
A number of cities have already expressed interest in vying for the 2020 Olympics, including Istanbul, Budapest and Delhi. A host city is expected to be named in 2013, and only one city per country is allowed to submit a bid.
In a speech last month in Mexico City, Akiba said he "firmly" believed the world could abolish nuclear weapons by 2020 and suggested holding the Olympics that year in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to celebrate.
Hiroshima, the site of the world's first atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, is located in western Japan about 400 miles from Tokyo. The city was instantly flattened and an estimated 140,000 people were killed or died within months after the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the bomb in the waning days of World War II.
Three days later, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on the port city of Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II. A total of about 260,000 victims of the bombings are officially recognized by the government, including those that died of related injuries or sickness in the decades since.
Nagasaki is 200 miles west of Hiroshima on the island of Kyushu.
Hiroshima held the 1994 Asian Games, which brought about 7,300 athletes from 42 countries and regions to the city.
The Japanese Olympic Committee praised the two cities for their enthusiasm but noted that a successful bid would require more than just a message of world peace.
"The concept to host the Olympics is wonderful," JOC secretary general Noriyuki Ichihara said, according to Kyodo news agency. "But I believe it would be difficult for the IOC to accept it just on the basis of abolishing nuclear weapons."
Just two weeks ago, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said between delirious sobs in Copenhagen that the International Olympic Committee's decision to award the 2016 Olympic Games to Rio de Janeiro was a vindication of Brazil's social and economic advances. Â But the elephant in the room at Copenhagen was the precarious security situation in the once-great city now fallen into decay, and that elephant made its presence felt last Saturday. At least 14 people were killed and eight more were injured after violent shootouts between rival drug gangs careened out of the favela slums and into neighboring communities. In the most spectacular incident, three officers were killed after gangsters shot down a police helicopter.
The day of violence - a school got hit in the crossfire and more than 10 buses were torched - has underscored the challenge of creating a secure environment for hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists in a state where close to 6,000 people are killed each year, more than 1,000 of them by the police. The homicide rate in Rio had been falling in recent years, but it is on the rise again. And authorities, acutely aware that last weekend's violence occurred in the Olympic spotlight, didn't sound exactly reassuring.(See five great stadium designs.)
"We told the International Olympic Committee that this is not easy and they know that," Rio Governor Sergio Cabral said. "We don't want just to be ready for special days, for that we can put 40,000 police on the streets. I told them we want to get to 2016 and have a peaceful Rio de Janeiro before, during and after the games."
Recent attempts at community policing in at least two favelas, including one in the heart of the touristy South Side, have given Cabral some grounds for optimism. By stationing officers inside the community rather than just storming it at the first signs of trouble, police have gained a measure of confidence and credibility among residents. (See pictures of Pope Benedict's visit to Brazil.)
But the program has been limited, and the task ahead remains enormous. Out of Rio's more than 1,000 favelas, the so-called Pacifier Police Divisions have been introduced in just four - authorities lack the resources or the manpower to implement them all across the city, and they have resisted root-and-branch reforms of police forces that are unprofessional, corrupt, poorly paid and poorly armed by comparison to the drug gangs they face.
Some previous attempts at community policing went wrong after residents accused officers of the same corrupt practices that are endemic throughout Brazil's police forces. This time around, authorities are hiring rookie cops they hope won't pick up the bad habits of veterans, and paying them bonuses in the hope they won't resort to accepting bribes.
"It is a genuine attempt to change the way policing is done but it will take a generation to make a start, not one or five or ten years," said Tom Phillips, the co-director of Dancing With the Devil, a just released film about traffickers and cops in one Rio favela. "But resources are stretched and they are doing it in just a handful of communities out of a thousand. If they tried doing it in 20 or 50, then they'd do a bad job in all of them." (Read "Can Rio Handle the 2016 Olympics?")
But if Rio's local government can at least claim to be conscious of the challenge, the same cannot be said for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and FIFA, international soccer's governing body, which chose Brazil as the host of the 2014 World Cup. Delegates awarded Rio the Olympics for legitimate reasons, and no soccer fan would argue that the city's legendary Maracana stadium does not deserve to host the World Cup Final. But both organizations sidestepped the problem of law enforcement and ensuring the safety of the hundreds of thousands of foreigners expected at those events.
The final IOC report made little mention of the security situation other than to euphemistically note the city "faces public security challenges." FIFA, for its part, declared that Brazil's "authorities have the know-how and resources to improve the situation before 2014 and would have the determination to manage it during the 2014 FIFA World Cup."
Before the Games and the World Cup were awarded, Rio officials played down the security angle and they were delighted at the IOC and FIFA's willingness to turn a blind eye to the security problem. Now, though, they are the ones left to deal with the problem. Last weekend was a reminder that, tough as it may be to meet the tight schedule building the stadiums and the public transportation infrastructure required to host those events, that may turn out to be the easy part.
Joined: 25 Mar 2004 Posts: 916 Location: SF Bay Area Country:
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 3:16 am Post subject:
I have a feeling that the spotlight will be on the weather this year.
Vancouver may not have adequate snow.
Did they choose this site to point out global warming? _________________
Why not the issue with Colbert on the cover?
I can't honestly say I'm that interested in the Winter Olympics but I'll be watching because for the first time I'll get to see them in HD.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Register
Log in
LOL!
