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Shades of G4S. It's deja vu all over again. Probably, like London, best in the long run though.

 

 

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Police take over Rio 2016 venue security after private firm sacked with week to go

Federal and State police will take over security duties outside venues for the Olympic Games here after the Ministry of Justice sacked a private firm contracted to run the screening process for "incompetence and irresponsibility".

In a situation which bears similarities with the G4S scandal ahead of London 2012, Rio de Janeiro-based firm Artel admitted this week that they had only been able to hire 500 of the 3,400 staff required to screen all visitors outside venues.

Government officals have now revealed the company have had their contract terminated.

Police forces from around the host country will take their place, performing work including the operating of X-ray machines and conducting body searches of those entering venues.

Members of the Federal Government's National Force will be utilised, along with active and retired police from Rio and surrounding states.

Serious concerns have been raised, however, over whether they will have the necessary training considering the serious security risks surrounding the Games, both from international terrorists groups and local criminals.

The tight timeline to recruit workers also highlights once again the last-minute and disorganised nature of preparations.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Artel's BRL R$17.3 million (£4 million/$5.3 million/€4.7 million) contract had only been finalised on July 1.

"The company [Artel] will be fined for its incompetence and irresponsibility," said Brazilian Justice Minister Alexandre Moraes.

"But the Games will not suffer any damage."

In total, 85,000 security forces are expected to be deployed during the Games.

Concerns remain over their accommodation, however, and over whether the financial crisis affecting the State Govenment will hinder their activities.

State police forces have also signified their discontent, holding strikes and wielding a banner welcoming tourists arriving at the Rio Galeão-Tom Jobim International Airport "to hell" last month.

Much of the focus has been on the dangers of international terrorism following the deadly truck rampage in Nice earlier this month, but there are also concerns over muggings and other localised attacks.

Security forces seem a heavy presence around the Olympic sites, although check-points seem far less common than during some other recent Games, and appear particularly lenient at areas including the media accommodation villages.

Problems with a private security contractor revives memories of London 2012.

Then, G4S, one of the world’s largest security firms, acknowledged less than a month before the Opening Ceremony that it would not be able to provide enough qualified personnel.

Armed forces were successfully recruited to assist with screening duties.

Insidethegames

 

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2 hours ago, thorbr said:

Mr. Rolls would you care to explain the banner on your signature, the naked girl, etc....? thanks

It's Juliana Paes and my own favourite mascot Fatso proudly comparing and displaying their derrieres on Ipanema Beach.

 

It's a reference to an GamesBids meme from seven years ago, during Rio's original bid campaign. Baron used Juliana's curves in his own banners of the time, and the Watermelon Woman was a popular topic here during the bid.

Edited by Sir Rols
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Chinese Olympic athlete vomited on, robbed of luggage

Chinese 110m hurdler Shi Dongpeng, who,  with an accompanying cameraman, fell victim to a robbery just after checking in to their hotel in Rio de Janeiro.

The pair were reportedly approached by a local who appeared to be drunk, who then proceeded to vomit on the former Asian Games silver medallist, according to the International Sport Press Association (AIPS).

While Shi, competing in his fourth Olympics next month, went to clean himself up, his cameraman chased the drunk local out of the hotel, only for the Chinese duo to return to find that all of the cameraman's equipment had been stolen, along with baggages belonging to both men.

Surveillance footage has since revealed that they had been the victims of an organised professional robbery, where the drunk man was used as a distraction.

Shi and the cameraman both went to Rio police to report the crime, having to wait two hours due to a queue of other victims of robbery from around the city.

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Olympic organizers’ promise of a transformed Rio, despite $US15.7b spent, has already been broken

A RAGGEDLY dressed, elderly woman sleeps on a patch of grass beside a busy highway in Rio de Janeiro’s affluent south zone.

Using a bag stuffed with her belongings as a pillow, she seems oblivious to traffic whizzing out of a tunnel behind her. Darting past in their thousands on a sun-drenched winter afternoon, they appear equally oblivious to her.

Above the tunnel, Rio’s official Olympic logo is splashed incongruously: “Um Mundo Novo — A New World.”

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Photographer Felipe Barcellos recently noticed a homeless woman sleeping near a road in Rio that was renovated for the Olympics. To him, she represented all that Brazil was covering up. Barcellos’ photo received over 19,000 shares as of Wednesday and is helping to shed light on the plight of Rio’s most vulnerable citizens.

Photo Reveals The Side Of Rio That Brazilian Officials May Be Trying To Hide From You

Edited by paul
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...somebody's got to do it. :D

p.s. I'm not posting 24 hour updates on plane crashes with alarming/dramatic music score intros so that's the difference between me and cnn. Oh and CNN keeps talking about the polluted water in RIO....I kinda gave that up when i realized everybody in Rio thinks poop water is A-OK!

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3 hours ago, paul said:

This kind of news annoys me, not because is bad news but they dig old news as zika and pre-made texts to tell false stories. People here said this photo is fake and was made in photoshop. Anyway, you can still sight some beggar in city centre but this is not so common as a decade ago. Rio officials are NOT trying to hide this. The favelas are there and the beggars are not disappearing because they are being kidnapped!

About the broken promisses, I also disagree. It's true that not everything was possible to deliver as the complete cleaning of the bay that may take more 20 years (the bay is huge), but no one mentions that the water quality has improved in Rio. Instead they send people to São Gonçalo, a city kilometers away from Rio where you can see floating trash in the bay to take pictures and say the athletes will get sick. No one mentions that the expansion of the subway to the barra region (that was NOT in the bid book) was delivered before the games, but you can read that its construction suffered from delays. Nobody says that Rio has exceeded the target number of hotel rooms and will not need ship rooms, but they say we did not sell as many tickets as London. Of course not. Brazil is far from Europe and you help to keep people away with this campaign to destroy the image of Rio.

Rio delivered 99% of what was promissed. The transformation of the city is visible!

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Olympic Park: security man is arrested and charged with rape.

 

A security of the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro was taken to the police station accused of rape on Sunday morning (31 ) . The information was confirmed by the delegate of the civil police Marcus Vinicius Braga. Security was spotted putting his hand under the blouse of one of bombeiras the Olympic Park , which was resting at the time . The action was noticed immediately and the man was arrested , accused of Article 215 - have sexual intercourse without permission, which provides the penalty of 2 to 6 years . He was taken to the 16th DP , in Barra da Tijuca , Oceanico Garden . Wanted by UOL Esporte , the Rio 2016 Committee said he did not know the case and will investigate what happened before ruling .

http://olimpiadas.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2016/07/31/seguranca-do-parque-olimpico-e-preso-em-fragrante-por-estupro.htm

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looks yellow....sorry but the truth is visible even in shots you think look clear. why do folks from Rio argue this point, the water is disgusting, full stop.

p.s. we know it's not as dirty as the thick poo areas around guanabara bay by the inlets and sewage pipe gushers, but if you think it's all clear and wonderful one or 2 beaches over then more power to ya.

Edited by paul
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5 hours ago, Bezzi said:

This kind of news annoys me, not because is bad news but they dig old news as zika and pre-made texts to tell false stories. People here said this photo is fake and was made in photoshop.

...yes i read than many people in Brazil are saying this picture which went viral was Photoshoped......the photographer is well know and said he put a couple filter on it and many people tried to use that as evidence it is fake. I mean really? it's not that big a deal or something you would need to go out of your way to fake, i dont know why people try to explain these simple facts of life away.

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5 hours ago, Bezzi said:

Rio delivered 99% of what was promissed. The transformation of the city is visible!

im sure you are happy to see some improvement but even JUST the neglected promise of cleaning up the sewage runoff and cleaning up water in the bay and surrounding area if weighted would compromise 20 or 30% of the legacy promise i would think, let alone all the other promises. so 99%?....not even close.

lets not even start with what was promised for Rios security and pacification. crime, violence and murder is way up this year according most report from many sources.

Edited by paul
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Rio 2016: Australians report theft at Olympic Village with laptop and shirts stolen

China puts out warning after attack on Olympic delegates

BEIJING -- China has issued a safety warning to Chinese people visiting Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics following a spate of thefts and armed robberies committed against the country's athletes, officials, members of the media and others.

Edited by paul
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Some people are "half full" people and others are "half empty" people.  The water photos really show nothing.  The water could be very clear of yellow as others have said.  How many times have you taken a picture and when you looked at it the colors were "off"?  This could possibly be the case here.  The only way to tell is to actually see the water in person.

That being said, Rio has made great accomplishments getting ready for the Olympics.  Yes there are still problems - but look at past Olympics.  Specifically Sochi.  Sochi had very few hotels ready - they had to bring in ships to take the overflow and even then they were kicking people off the ships in order to tale care of "Olympic Family".

Bottom line is that we all wish Rio had gotten more done and that Zika / terrorism / violence was not an issue......but the fact is that they are still issues.  We all just need to deal with it and keep aware of our surroundings.

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On 7/30/2016 at 9:28 PM, thorbr said:

 

 

Meh. The lack of mosquitoes due to it being winter time in Brazil I'll give you that one, but the rest of it is just your typical protect the tourists spots at all costs mentality from the city. Ever been to Cancun? The majority of the people visiting there will stay in the hotel zone. That's where all the hotels, the beautiful beaches, and the nightlife are. At night you can even walk up and down the hotel zone, which I did, and I wasn't scared or anything. The people who work there even admit that yes Cancun makes it a point to protect this area because this is their money making area.

I actually stayed outside the hotel zone for most of my stay in the city and let me tell you that the actual city is NOTHING like the hotel zone. While it's not exactly a complete danger, it's not someplace you feel comfortable walking around late at night. I could have walked like 5 minutes to my hotel from the gay district which was located in the city center, but my taxi driver didn't recommend it and even I could tell it wasn't a great idea. It's dirty, it smells and it's best to NEVER use the bathrooms in a large public area like a mall because you'll have to pay and it smells like hell. I even took a bus ride deeper into the city to get to the port the locals use to get to Isla Mujeres and you see how underdeveloped some of the areas are and you see the poverty.

It's clear that Rio do everything they can to prevent the tourists from seeing the worst parts of the city. Nothing wrong with that. But let's not pretend that just because you never left the heavy tourist areas of the city and didn't see anything wrong doesn't mean the problems in the city that have been mentioned for weeks now do not exist.

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If Rio really wanted to hide the poor part of the city they should built all the venues in the south zone, but we have venues in Deodoro and everyone that will go from Maracanã and olympic stadium to Deodoro will see the poor part of the city. There are no walls. You can go there if you want. But what we should do? To make the entire olympics in the north just to show the world that Rio is poor? The rich part is also Rio, why hide this? Many cities of the world have their problems and I doubt that they will use the poor part in the games like Rio did.

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We have our problems but we must separate what is related to the games. The media assign things like zika to try to justify a possible failure of the games and this is what I say is wrong. Zika is a problem that Rio will have to deal with when the summer comes. Violence is a problem we will have to face when the army left the city. We need to ensure that the works to clean-up the bay will continue, to improve the quality of life of residents. The athletes and visitors will be fine during the olympics. But what happens after we will see.

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rio-de-janeiro-aug-1-2016-international-

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 1, 2016 - International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach (C) and president of the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee Carlos Arthur Nuzman (L) attend the unveiling ceremony of the Olympic Truce Wall in the Olympic Village, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Aug. 1, 2016. The Olympic Truce Wall was unveiled in the Olympic Village of the Rio Olympics on Monday, four days before the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Games.

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