Pope Francis told pilgrims on Wednesday at his weekly audience at the Vatican that in a world “thirsty for peace, tolerance and reconciliation”, he hopes the games can inspire everyone to pursue a prize that is “not a medal but something more precious – achieving a civilization in which solidarity reigns, founded on the recognition that we are all members of one human family”. Supermodel Gisele Bündchen will play the role of the girl from Ipanema and Brazilian model Lea T will be the first transgender person to play a major role in an Olympic opening ceremony.
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The first person to hoist the flame within Rio boundaries on Thursday? This news story is related to Print/140225-Police-open-way-for-torch-through-Rio-protest/ – breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne.
In the lead-up to this Olympiad, Brazil has seen its deck of cards shuffled too often and too unfairly.
Those anti-torch demonstrations – the second in two days – underscored simmering social tensions in Latin America’s largest country amid its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and a political crisis that has deeply divided the country. In a bitterly divided country, protesters are encouraging spectators to boo Temer, who took over after the Senate voted to subject leftist President Dilma Rousseff to an impeachment hearing this month.
The 2016 Olympic opening ceremony will be taking place tonight at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Accordingly 85,000 troops and Police are on patrol, acting as guardians rather than trouble shooters. Truckloads of armed personnel either wade through Rio traffic or stand stoically idle on the side of the road as photographers enter comfort-zone levels while snapping photos.
“I hope that the opening ceremony will be a drug for depression in Brazil”, Fernando Meirelles, one of the creative directors of the ceremony and the director of the film “City of God”, told CNN.
It’s estimated that the Olympics, which have happened just two years after the soccer World Cup, will cost Brazil in excess of fifteen billion dollars. “We studied the ceremonies, we cried with fear”, she said. “We have popular culture as well”. Rio 2016 CEO Sidney Levy said those three issues were his biggest concerns with the opening ceremony only 48 hours away.
“We had a budget way below what you would expect for an event of this type, but we are pretty used to working this way”, said Daniela Thomas, a filmmaker who spoke with pride of the mix of thriftiness and creativity that Brazilians call “gambiarra”. That’s 12 times less than London and 20 times less than Beijing, he added. “I have not heard anything even about informal dialogues on this subject”, the Brazilian foreign minister said.
You’ll never see such action taken from track and field athletes, heptathlete Heather Miller-Koch said. “I did the Opening Ceremonies in London – so kinda like a “I’ve been there, done that” kind of thing”. Big spending and the waste of unused venues in ex-host cities have forced Olympic organizers onto the defensive and left them with a shrinking pool of taxpayers willing to foot the bills.
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But a reminder of the undercurrent in this country presented itself Thursday at dusk. We know that the Maracana stadium is a long way from [the Olympic village], but I encourage all athletes to participate because it will be a magnificent experience.
