|
 Mimicking American president-elect Barack Obama battle cry during his winning electoral campaign, Rio de Janeiro governor Sérgio Cabral, who is in Istambul trying to get the 2016 Olympic Games to Brazil, told members of the International Olympic Committee: "Yes, we can."
Rio is competing with Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo for the right to host those games. For Cabral, who seemed confident of the Brazilian victory, Rio has something very important to offer: the commitment of the federal government to work close to the city of Rio de Janeiro to guarantee the success of the Olympics.
"We are making a commitment here to do our homework. What's still missing in transportation infrastructure and equipments, will be done with joint hands: city hall, federal government and state government together. That's why I say repeating president Obama that "Yes, we can," the governor said, using English for the future president slogan.
The four cities bidding to host the Olympics will present, this Friday, November 21, their cases to the assembly of European Olympic Committees. Chicago's presentation is expected to include a videotape message from Obama, who was until recently a US senator from Illinois. The president-elect lives on Chicago's south side.
Anti-U.S. sentiment worldwide was reflected in Olympic politics with New York defeated in its bid for the 2012 Games. But Obama's election has changed the dynamics of this competition.
The US Olympic committee are counting on president Obama attending the IOC meeting in Copenhagen when the host city will be chosen next year on October 2, 2009.
According to governor Cabral, among the infrastructure projects that he promised to have ready on time there are the remodeled Tom Jobim International Airport, access roads, subway lines, bus corridors and enough hotel rooms to satisfy the IOC requirements.
"I came here to make it clear to the member of the International Olympic Committee that this is a project involving all levels of the government and that Rio's mayor elect is responsible to make this happen."
"This is an occasion for the IOC to make a historical decision: to change in order to give a chance to the youth of all the continents to host the Olympic Games, said Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
no money in the first place and even if you got it togeather
some politican would rob the kitty blind
and the price would go 20 times over buget
be behind by a year , never finished , substander concret would colaps under the strain of the people .
no place to build it ,
no air port to move the people .
no proper housing .
then the killings , rapes , robries.
lack of police , no justice for the tourist ,
no one goes to jail for the crimes .
I CHANGED MY MIND GO AHEAD HAVE THE GAMES PROVE TO THE WORLD WHAT TYPE OF COUNTRY BRASIL IS
WHEN YOU GET DOWN TO IT