China: rooms available

 
The Olympic Games about to start, and yet the hotels around the host city still waiting to book their rooms. With all the controversy around and the negative publicity pretty much since the year started, the question is if the 500,000 foreigners expected to attend the event will actually show up.
 
The games are supposed to showcase a new China, but they are also exposing facets of the authoritarian state that has run the country for almost six decades. The situation seems to be certainly more complicated than just dealing with political philosophies, like China’s policies toward Sudan and Dafur or the recent Tibet situation; there is also the unfortunate and devastating earthquake, Beijing’s chronic air pollution (that has prompted many athletes to train outside the country and enter just before their events begin) and to add one more, of course terrorism: the head of Interpol warned China that there is a “real possibility” that the Beijing Olympics will be targeted by terrorist groups.
To what was expected to be the best in Olympic history, is turning out to be the most controversial event, mixing the beauty and neutrality of sports with politics. 
The event slogan is “One World, one Dream,” calling upon the world to unite in the Olympic spirit. If we only could take off the word “Olympic”… 

Filed Under Diversity, Events, Politics