"The biggest things these extremists get from it [Islamist jihad] is community. They treat each other with love and they hate everybody else." "I can't lose my Spartan warrior reputation. That is my legitimacy in the prisons." "From Ali's point of view, 'This is one of the guys I have been preaching to kill for years'." Usman Raja, pioneer, mixed martial arts fighting
Usman Raja, (right), whose mix of martial arts and theology is deradicalizing convicted terrorists like Abu Bakr Mansha (left)
"That is where the mixed martial arts come in. It gives him street cred, and a starting point to have some of these conversations [with young men at 'risk']." "Usman has taken on some of the most hard-core, extreme cases that the U.K. has to offer. And he has a very good success rate at getting them back into productive roles in society." Douglas Weeks, radicalization expert, Unity Initiative
Mr. Raja speaks knowledgeably on the history of Islam and enjoys peppering his conversations with anecdotes about jihadists. He speaks of a former top leader of a London-based extremist group, Al Muhajiroom. That Ali Beheshti, that leader, incensed at a publisher who produced a novel about the Prophet Muhammad spent four years in Belmarsh prison for setting fire to the publisher's house. He made his point, evidently, and paid the social-justice price for his criminal act.
Mr. Raja, however, turned Mr. Beheshti's life view around evidently, meeting with him five days weekly for an entire year-and-a-half, training him in fighting, bringing him to the gym to spar with a white British soldier. The soldier was so impressed with Mr. Beheshti's acquired fighting skills that he said, "Congratulations, we are really proud of what you are doing". Mr. Beheshti must be proud himself in gaining approval by the very lot he once swore to fight; volunteering now with the Unity Initiative.
The Unity Initiative is part of Mr. Raja's project, helping to reintegrate over 40 released prisoners who had been convicted of terrorism offences in Britain. Over 180 young Muslims have been counseled by Mr. Raja, referred to him by members of their own Muslim communities or by law enforcement authorities. To his knowledge, none has gone on to commit a terrorist act. Yet. Instead of arguing militants away from their convictions, Mr. Raja forms personal relationships.
Building their sense of engagement in a community, vigilant to determine when and whether the ideological arguments gradually fall into disuse at a time when British militants are returning from the fields of conflict in Syria and Iraq to the United Kingdom. Mr. Raja's work has become so well known that he has been consulted by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy, for advice on how they might proceed in similar circumstances.
A Home Official official has said that Usman Raja, pictured, has an
'ability to inspire' former terrorists to re-think their old ways
Usman Raja, the son of Pakistani immigrants, became a habitue at a gym in an area dominated by the British army base in Aldershot, where he lived with his mother and his first experiences were fighting and brawling with the sons of soldiers slurring his Pakistani heritage. Soon he was making a name for himself in East London gyms. He considered joining other young British Muslims in the jihad against Bosnian Serbs who sought out his help in acquiring fighting skills.
Instead, he was influenced by a Malaysian Muslim scholar given to preaching a tolerant style of Islam and that led him to voluntary social work. Here's hoping his skillful prowess at mixed martial arts continues to impress those looking for the life-skills he purveys, and that he continues his success story turning them away from jihad-influenced violence to a type of societal-approved violence of physical skills.
"[The fighting between Russian and British hooligans in France during Euro 2016 is] a
disgrace [still it is puzzling and it's hard to] understand how 200 of our fans
could beat up several thousand English fans." "I hope that there are sober-minded people among them [the battling fans] who really love
sport and understand that any violation is not supporting their
favourite team but damaging to the team and to sport." Russian President Vladimir Putin
Friends in high places ... Alexander Shprygin pictured with Russian PM Vladimir Putin in 2010 -- Aleksey Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images
Deported on Sunday, promising to return expeditiously, so as not to miss anything, Alexander Shprygin has made it abundantly clear that if his mentor Vladimir Putin can stick his thumb in the eye of the West in an intransigent entitlement to expand Greater Russia in eastern Europe, then he, as a loyal fan of Russian sports, can with impunity incite his fellow Russian sport enthusiasts to teach England fans a less in humility.
With the authority vested in him by his high-echelon connections, Shprygin, a neo-Nazi -- in a nation which had sacrificed countless lives to counter Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union during World War II -- as an official member of the Russian delegation at euro 2016 was heavily invested in demonstrating his credentials. And did so in the manner typical of eastern Europe with an emphasis on Russian tradition.
Marseilles has been witness to some really exciting game plays and their accompanying aftermaths expressing the enthusiasm of game aficionados who know of a certainty that their team deserves popular acclaim and winning results through sheer skill, tenacity and sportsmanship. And it was that sportsmanship which Shprygin and his gang were eager to demonstrate, and did.
But not before their "racist behaviour" was recognized by a fine levied on the Russian Football Union of $240,000 alongside the threat they will be expelled from the tournament should more problems with their unbridled enthusiasm arise. All of which was a matter of amused commentary from the deputy speaker of the Russian parliament of whom Shprygin was a former protege. "I don't see anything wrong with the fans fighting", tweeted Igor Ledbdev. "Quite the opposite. Well done, lads. Keep it up." Followed up by the Kremlin's Investigative Committee's Vladimir Markin quipping that French police didn't have what it takes to negotiate with "normal blokes", since they're usually at attendance during gay parades.
Once it became evident that calls were being heard to abandon the 2018 World Cup venue in Moscow and St.Petersburg for an alternative venue, a bit of sober second thought moved into the cerebellum of those for whom Western consternation at the obvious disregard by Russia at all levels of Western societal norms being viciously upturned lent credence to removing the privilege of siting the World Cup in Russia.
Suddenly, Mr. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, underwent an amazing attitudinal transformation, echoing his boss in characterizing Russia's fans' behaviour as "a disgrace" bringing "shame" on Russia. The violence that France was experiencing through that source had become "absolutely unacceptable". By no means contrite, just stating the civil obvious.
Associated Press -- Bloodshed ... French police tend to an injured fan during the aftermath of violent scenes in Marseilles
"Athletes have lost faith in the process and the way that they're being protected. It makes you question your faith in the whole system and whether the playing field truly is even." Hayley Wickenheiser, Canadian hockey player, five-time Olympic medallist
"I often wondered what I was to WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency]. I didn't know if I was an informant or just a pain in the butt." "It was a list of Vancouver [Russian athletes at the Vancouver games] athletes who had prepared at doping. RUSADA [Russian Anti-Doping Agency] was to co-operate on those athletes and only test them when the ministry allowed." "I saw that my wife, everyone who was inside the Russian system, they were right. There was no doping fighting. It is just politics." Vitaliy Stepanov, former Russian anti-doping agent
Yuliya and Vitaly Stepanov
CBS News
"In simple terms, it came down to the fact that we, as an organization, didn't have any investigative powers." "[WADA created an investigative team] to facilitate inquiries and investigations by co-operating with the relevant national and international organizations and agencies." Ben Nichols, WADA spokesman
"I left the meeting a little perplexed. I thought maybe they just needed some time to consider this." "The curtain had been pulled back here of a state-sponsored methodology of undermining the anti-doping system and cheating, and yet only one sport was going to be affected? What about the other sports?" Beckie Scott, chair, WADA athlete's committee
A woman walks into the head office for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in Montreal, Canada. Christinne Muschi / Reuters
It was back at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games that Vitaliy Stepanov approached officials with the World Anti-Doping Agency to give them information they really didn't want to know about. But as a disillusioned anti-doping agent for Russia Mr. Stepanov was fed up and in defense of sport gave details on the endemic nature of drug cheating among Russian Olympic athletes. And they were led by the government and by Russia's own anti-doping agency to illegally use drugs to scoop up medals.
It took until early 2014 before a senior WADA authority directed Mr. Stepanov to make contact with a German journalist because he too finally became disillusioned, convinced that WADA would simply sweep away the claims and make no effort to investigate. But the facts leading to the certainty that at the last two Olympics Russian athletes used banned drugs to give them an advantage over the athletes of other nations can no longer be ignored.
From the very first revelations in 2010, Mr. Stepanov informed WADA officials it was not only that individual athletes and coaches were involved in unfair advantages. What was happening was an institutionalized, systematic determination to cheat, led by the state. Juliya, Mr. Stepanov's wife, was herself an elite Russian runner. She had informed her husband in no uncertain terms that for years she had used anabolic steroids and endurance boosting drugs without once being apprehended.
She was coached in drug use by Russian physicians and Russian coaches. And it wasn't just track and field. A colleague at the Russian Anti-Doping Agency had informed Mr. Stepanov when he worked there too that a list of athletes' names whom Russia's sports ministry had sent over were of athletes called "the untouchables". Their samples were to be strictly avoided unless and until the all-clear was given to test them. WADA, for its part, claims it was missing the authority to conduct investigations.
But then it hired an investigative officer, a former DEA agent, Jack Robertson. And Mr. Robertson exchanged emails with Mr. Stepanov. When it was obvious that Mr. Stepanov had blown the whistle against Russian athletes, his government and the agency for whom he worked, he was dismissed from his job at RUSADA, ostensibly as a result of 'restructuring'. And then, he received an email from Mr. Robertson that was different in tone.
He was urged by the WADA investigator to contact Hajo Seppelt, a German reporter and film-maker whose enquiries into Russian doping had taken place on previous occasions. Out of that contact a documentary, Top Secret Doping: How Russia Makes Its Winners, aired in December 2014 on German television. In short order, WADA finally received the authority to investigate. And last November WADA publicly released results of its investigation.
Unsurprisingly it corroborated what was told to it by Mr. Stepanov of widespread government and doping agency collaboration on supplying drugs to Russian athletes and protecting them from detection. But that doping revelation was confined to Russian track and field while merely suggesting in their announcement that doping was rampant in other sports fields with the involvement of government.
At a WADA meeting shortly afterward, Beckie Scott, chair of the agency's athlete's committee insisted WADA officials open a follow-up investigation into all Russian Olympic sports programs, and her recommendation was set aside. Later, she and other athletes renewed calls for a wider investigation. Finally, last month 60 Minutes aired an interview with Mr. Stepanov and his wife. And then Grigory Rodchenkov, a former director of a Russian anti-doping laboratory informed the New York Times of assisting in the sabotage of drug testing at the 2014 Sochi games.
Which led the International Olympic Committee to retest urine samples from previous games and WADA to open a second, widesweeping investigation of Russian sports. WADA intends to complete this latest investigation by July 15 to enable a decision relating to Russia's participation in Rio to be made in good time. "It'll be high-speed, but it'll be thorough", noted Dick Pound, former WADA president.
Sir Craig Reedie, WADA's current president who is also an IOC vice-president, is being regarded in a less than favourable light. "Craig Reedie is a vice president of the IOC first and a WADA president second. It's just appalling. Instead of standing up and doing his job, he's just waiting to see which way the wind is blowing", stated a disgruntled individual with insider knowledge and experience of WADA, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"We will continue to work with the relevant authorities and we will work vigorously within FIFA in order to root out any misconduct, to regain your trust and ensure that football worldwide is free from wrongdoing." (pre-election) "This gives
me now the time because I was said to be responsible with what's
happened. I take the responsibility and we have to build up now a better
image of FIFA and I know how to do it."
"It
was a very difficult congress due to the circumstances of these tragic
events on Wednesday and Thursday in Zurich and what the media said
around the world about FIFA."
"I
was identified to be responsible for what has happened. I take the
responsibility and we have to build up a better image of FIFA and I know
how to do it." (post-election)
Sepp Blatter, FIFA president
"[We are] fully committed to creating a culture that promotes the highest standards of ethics and compliance and we expect the same from our partners." Adidas, FIFA sponsor
Seven FIFA officials arrested, with charges against nine officials of FIFA along with five corporate executives, all charged with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies connected to 24 years of entitled corruption, in the process enriching themselves beyond imagination. Swiss prosecutors have announced that criminal proceedings are to proceed into FIFA's awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia, and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
The proceedings, needless to say represent "another case of illegal extraterritorial implementation of American law", according to Russia's outraged Foreign Ministry, representing a country the 2018 Cup was granted, over the U.S. bid. This brings sour grapes to a new level. Major Sponsors such as Coca-Cola, Visa and Adidas are aghast; they had no idea, NO IDEA, that their brand was involved, however innocently with corrupted malfeasance on such a grand scale.
They will rethink their sponsorship. Perhaps.
The European soccer body UEFA, had called on FIFA to postpone the Friday presidential vote since "the image of football as a whole" had been tarnished (!!surprise!!); perhaps a time-out might be useful at this juncture. They must not have realized that the inestimable Sepp Blatter at age 79, has lost none of his marbles, and certainly none of the gratitude of the South American and Asian soccer bodies whose vote for his continued presidency carried his day.
For he is the 'president of everybody', particularly those everybodies whom his generosity profited.
The fix was in, but the truth is out. The former chief of Britain's 2018 World Cup bid spoke before a parliamentary committee describing how FIFA officials demanded million-dollar payouts in exchange for votes. As for former FIFA executive Nicolas Leoz, he had all the filthy lucre he was happy to claim; what he wanted instead was a knighthood. When the English official responded it wouldn't be possible, he understood that neither would the games in 2018 be possible for Britain.
Mr. Leoz was one of the 14 FIFA men arrested in Zurich on Wednesday to answer for the American charges of racketeering and other offences. There are so many offensive offences casually overlooked as business as usual, that had it not been for the outlandishly inexplicable-but-for-bribes decision to grant the 2022 World Cup venue to Qatar, no such firestorm of 'we've-had-it' would have broken out into the world of the most popular sport going.
Qatar, a tiny country with no history of, let alone interest in football? A summer games choice in overheated Qatar? No football stadiums in Qatar ... no problem. Except for the thousands of imported slave labourers from poverty-stricken countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, labouring under intensively subpar conditions considered dangerous in any other part of the world, with reports of one death among the indentured workers every two days.
A foreign worker climbs scaffolding at the Al-Wakra stadium being built for the 2022 World Cup, in Doha.
Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AP
"My family lives in a village outside Kathmandu. My wife and two little children are sleeping on the road. But I can't leave [Qatar]. My employer won't let me go." "I can't leave because I have to pay back the loan I had taken to get to Qatar." Nepalese migrant worker in Doha
"We know that people who work long hours in high temperatures are
highly vulnerable to fatal heat strokes, so obviously these figures
continue to cause alarm." "It’s Qatar’s responsibility to determine if deaths are related to
living and working conditions, but Qatar flatly rejected a DLA Piper
recommendation to launch an immediate investigation into these deaths
last year." Nicholas McGeehan, Middle East researcher, Human Rights Watch
Foreign construction workers on a construction site in Doha, Qatar. Photograph: Str/EPA
Contractors in Qatar are permitted to work on rules that resemble nothing so much as slave labour. Foreign workers must hand their passports over to employers once they arrive in Qatar. This is done to prevent the possibility of those workers finding another job with more favourable employment, although that faint hope is unlikely. It also prevents workers from leaving the country until their contract has been fulfilled to their employer's full satisfaction.
Nepalese migrant workers queue to receive official documents in order to
leave Nepal from the labour department in Kathmandu. Photograph:
Prakash Mathema/AFP/Getty Images
Many workers are compensated poorly. They may also experience problems collecting wages due them. They are housed in fetid, cramped quarters. A labourer from Ghana was recently interviewed claiming that the agent who had recruited him assured him that he would be earning $950 monthly. What he ended up being paid was $250, instead; quite a comedown in expectations.
Qatar has been on the receiving end of quite a few news reports that reflect extremely poorly on employment relations with migrant workers it employs exclusively in the building of the site for the FIFA World Cup scheduled for Qatar in 2022. In the news was the revelation that in 2014 migrant workers from Nepal were dying at the rate of one every second day, as a result of dreadful working conditions.
That figure doesn't take into account the deaths of Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi workers working to build the World Cup infrastructure. Qatar claims criticism results from racism and Islamophobia. And it is supported by the Confederation of African Football, itself claiming that these "hateful, defamatory and degrading attacks" insult the integrity of CAF "and the entire African continent".
Workers imported to build stadiums, highways and skyscrapers suffer long hours of work, inadequate compensation, poor health care services, miserable accommodation, working under conditions that no first-world country would permit. And Qatar doesn't like the news painting it as a slave-labour country, let alone the criticisms relating to the absurdity of holding such an event in a country whose environment is hot, dry and dusty.
Qatar's vast wealth created Al Jazeera which is tasked with journalistically uncovering unsavoury details about the country's neighbours, much to their dismay. Likely, Qatar's emirs enjoy watching their competitors in oil production squirm with annoyance at revelations unearthed by Al Jazeera. News sourced in Qatar and published in Europe has caused a similar backlash in Qatar.
It has taken to tasking Qatari police to arrest journalists from abroad, holding them in detention and destroying their video footage. In its defence, Qatar cites the fact that foreign journalists must seek permission and a license to operate in Qatar. Journalists cite the fact that their applications go unanswered, so they enter the country anyway.
"Many [international] sporting events are held in Europe or in a place that is relatively developed." "Although
Brazil is developed, we're now talking about people going into endemic
areas with diseases that are potentially life-threatening." "You're not going to New York. You have to think of health issues." Dr. Jay Keystone, travel-medicine expert, Toronto
The official match ball for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. PHOTO: REUTERS
Dr. Keystone is speaking with the authority of one
who knows, with data on past visitors to Brazil giving more than
adequate warning that the flood of World Cup enthusiasts who will enter
the country will bring back with them more than fond memories of the
sporting events they witnessed. According to a new multi-national study.
In the past, such travellers have brought back with them cases of
malaria, dengue fever, wretched skin conditions and allied maladies from
a geography with its unfortunate share of infectious disease.
In
Canada alone, travelling Canadians bring back with them annually
similar maladies from their jaunts in southeast Asia and India, with
infectious-disease reputations similar to that of Brazil. Fans who
migrate to Brazil over the next two months for the World Cup, or later
on into 2016 for the Olympics, would do well to give deep thought to
guarding themselves against malarial mosquitoes, tainted water, and
allied threats to human health.
While Brazil itself is
mobilizing 157,000 soldiers and police to ensure against violence
breaking out in its capital an various sport venues, and security is of
immense importance during the event, those travelling from abroad,
anticipating fun and games, entertainment and the time of their lives,
may find themselves facing the health challenges of their lives if
they're not sufficiently attuned to the potential health dangers they
will face on their arrival.
Within Brazil, mass
demonstrations, strikes and protests have brought out as many as a
million people, angry and outraged that their government is hosting such
world events.The protests have become violent at times.
"Our feeling is that (the protests) will be smaller than the ones last
June [over the Confederations Cup, a dress rehearsal for the World Cup].
But, sincerely speaking, we are prepared for any situation", journalists were told by Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo.
The
protesters are angry over the more than $11 billion being spent
to host the World Cup in a country with glaring social and wealth
inequality and pressing
needs in education, unaddressed issues in health care, housing and
transport. Brazil boasts one of the world's worst crime rates. And, as
the World Cup event comes ever nearer, there is a threat of a nationwide
strike by federal police. At a time when 3-million Brazilians and
600,000 foreign tourists will be attending the events.
Infection
rates are largely preventable if people exercise due diligence and
become vaccinated where appropriate, advised Dr. Keystone. Slated to
begin next month, concerns have been raised about the high rate of
violent crime, the potential for political unrest, and the prevalence of
malaria and yellow fever endemic to parts of the country. Dengue fever
has caused massive outbreaks recently. While about 40% of people
returning from Brazil over a 16-year-period were bedevilled by skin
conditions.
AP Photo/Andre Penner A
man shops for World Cup regalia at a store in San Paulo, Brazil.
The recently published study on the issues involved of which Dr. Keystone played a part, appearing in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, launched research headed by Mary Wilson of Harvard University's School of Public Health, examining data from the GeoSentinel Surveillance Network which samples travel-medicine clinics on six continents.
The most common skin condition brought back from Brazil is cutaneous larva migrans;
tiny roundworms penetrating the upper layer of the epidermis,
occasionally moving under the surface. Next was diarrhea, triggered by
various pathogens, and following that in incidence was fever-causing
illnesses like dengue and malaria. Dengue, spread by mosquitoes is
present throughout Brazil.
Yellow fever, with the same
type of mosquitoes as dengue being responsible for infection, kills
about 7% of patients, yet presenting less of a threat in Brazil's main
coastal cities, but rather inland. But Malaria and Dengue are present in
two cities hosting World Cup matches. And Yellow fever venues take in
five World Cup and two Olympic sites.
Dr. Keystone
advises that fans whose plans are to attend either of these events
should visit a travel-medicine clinic to obtain vaccinations or
anti-malarial drugs. Once within Brazil, travellers should be alert to
the use of mosquito repellent, pass on drinking tap water and appealing
as it might seem, give an additional pass to consuming street-stall
food.
And then, he added the most common way to heaven
for foreign travellers -- 40% of fatalities -- is represented in
motor-vehicle accidents. Avoid travelling on rural roads during the
nighttime.
Qatar, the country that gave the world Al Jazeera, will be hosting the 2022 World Cup and is busy preparing for that event of huge global sport proportions. It is an enormous project requiring the building of impressive infrastructure to host the event. Eight to a dozen state-of-the-art stadiums are to be built in the process. Qatar is an immensely wealthy state, an oil Sheikdom (Monarchy) of only about 280,000 citizens.
Doha Port Stadium in Doha. To be built. Expected capacity: 44,950Photograph: Qatar 2022 Bid Committee
In such oil-rich Gulf States like Qatar which boasts the world's third largest oil reserves, it is not the scant citizenry of the country who do menial, physical work for cash compensation, but an imported work force from impoverished countries whose citizens travel to Qatar to earn whatever they can at low wages and no workplace safety or security guarantees, let alone human-rights expectations.
In a world top-heavy with oil-rich tyrannies the indigent poor of the world migrate for crumbs.
Qatar relies on its 2.4-million migrant workers to ensure that the infrastructure for the World Cup will be in place and on time. Workers come from countries like India, Pakistan, the Philippines and elsewhere in the east where jobs are scarce though impoverished, indigent families must somehow be fed. Labourers live in cramped, squalid conditions in Qatar. They earn a pittance and are at the mercy of those who employ them.
Qatar employs a system of employment whereby workers' passports are confiscated to be held by their employers, and at the same time exit visas are withheld. Workers are thus effectively held as prisoners to the labour system; unable to leave, unable to retake possession of their passports, unable to procure the documentation required to enable them to depart a country which feasts on their blood and sinew.
In the past year, no fewer than 194 Nepalese migrant workers have perished from the results of what has been termed "sudden cardiac death", caused by physical duress; overwork in dreadful working conditions and extreme heat. While the Nepalese embassy in Qatar says 400 workers have died since 2010 working on World Cup projects, India has reported that 500 of its own have died since 2012 in Qatar as well.
The general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation claims that at current rates, four thousand people will meet their deaths in producing the physical wherewithal of presenting the 2022 World Cup to the international community. According to a March ITUC report, 1,200 migrants have died in the four years since Qatar was awarded the World Cup -- or, conversely, bought the World Cup.
But FIFA president Sepp Blatter has no issues with stating "There is not one single doubt that the World Cup will be organized in Qatar". Yet both FIFA and Qatar are not entirely ignorant of what the world looking in from the outside is now realizing through investigative journalism revealing the crisis of humanity that is playing out in Qatar with the building of the World Cup features.
Britain's The Guardian had been investigating the crisis and reports that proposed alterations in working conditions for Qatar's virtual slave army should not be considered a reality until it is seen that changes actually are introduced and followed. Interesting that it is a British newspaper that follows the trajectory of Qatar's World Cup construction, and not Al Jazeera. But then, the first order of a hound is not to bite the hand that feeds it.
"Promises to fully review sponsorship and exit permits in the long term don't help workers on the ground. The government has been announcing a law on domestic workers' rights since 2008 but we still haven't seen it", said James Lynch of Amnesty International.
"They'll never be a super-power. They can't, they don't have the population, they don't have the innovation. Russia could be a very successful, advanced, industrialized state of about 140 million people. But Putin doesn't see that. He bought into the imperial ambitions that when he came to power he was dismissive of. So he began to be seduced by power.... He has bought into the fantasy." "That's what's going to happen to Russia. It will be Greece on the Black Sea." [For Russia, hosting Sochi -- a Winter Games in a sub-tropical climate is] "one exorbitant, costly, unaffordable Putin party that, no matter how good it will look at the time, will leave a terrible economic and political smell afterward for which Russia is ill-equipped to pay." Aurel Brain, Canadian visiting professor of international relations, Harvard University
"They lost that in the Soviet collapse, and then in the Russian collapse, and he has been trying to get back on the pedestal." "What he's done is to create a very tempting target for people in the North Caucasus who don't like him." "The one that's really going to get him, I bet, is he says the Olympics cost $14-billion. Others say it cost $51-billion. So where is the $37-billion? I can surmise that a lot of it has been stolen. By whom? People with access. Friends of Putin. That's not going to go well." "In Russia, of course, nothing is what it seems. We don't realize what a pathetic remnant Russia is, and how a lot of this is smoke and mirrors.... Sochi's basically a fantasy. It is a fantasy of a Russia that is a superpower It is a fantasy of a Russia that is a technologically advanced state." "The Olympics might be the trigger for that tipping point where he starts to go down. Then the question is: What does he do then?" Neil MacFarlane, Lester B. Pearson professor of international relations, University of Oxford
Vladimir Putin in his presidential suite during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremonyPhoto: AP
Depends. Depends on whether the Russian population can be depended upon to reject the absurd fantasy of power that Vladimir Putin exudes. They have, after all, seen their president gull, entrap, and out-play the man who is recognized as the most powerful in the world, U.S. President Barack Obama. Mr. Obama, like Mr. Putin is a man of words; in Mr. Obama's instance, those words are soaring ones of fantasy, but he also issues words of warning, and makes no effort to back them up.
Famously as well, Mr. Putin, while being a man of words, those words are usually gruffly intimidating, since that's his style, and he does tend to back up his words with action; he is not averse to military action following warnings and threats of action. For Mr. Obama, who has turned out to be a shrinking violet on the world stage, the magical effect of reassuring words are meant to control events, but they do not when they are merely empty rhetoric.
As for Mr. Putin's delusions of power, and his reversion to venerating the Soviet Union and its master criminal Joseph Stalin, it is a symptom of nostalgic regret. And Mr. Putin feels, as the powerful figure he feels he is, if Joseph Stalin could be such a successful dictator as to absorb Russia's hegemonic multi-state union, powerfully increasing the population numbers swift to obey his orders, why not he, equally charismatic and given to displays of his physical prowess?
Hasn't he demonstrated his foreign relations credentials more than amply? By deft diplomatic actions ushering President Obama toward forgiveness of the damnably atrocity-loving regime of Bashar al Assad, enabling him, for the small price of appearing to surrender his chemical arsenal, to continue his mutilation of a country, persecuting its majority, arresting, torturing, murdering, bombing, assaulting and finally starving Syrian civilians to death?
From there it was a simple process to similarly disarm the intentions of the world's most powerful figure -- simple because he really had no heart in his threats to prevent Iran, by all and any means available, from acquiring nuclear warheads -- to agree to a simple-minded process that would significantly offer the Republic more time it needs to proceed uninterrupted by rude interventions by a concerned West, to complete the process it set about in refining ballistics and purifying weapons-grade uranium.
The triumphant third of the series of gallant intervention to secure another victory, was to appear to save the hide of a colleague. Coercing an already-convinced President of Ukraine that the country would be better off aligning itself with its old mentoring state of Russia than taking a rescue package from the European Union which obviously has an underhanded plan in mind, which pure-minded Russia obviously does not, willing to bail out its old satellite-dependent out of the goodness of Putin's heart.
Set in 74 hectares of prime land near the Black Sea coast, the palace is reported to be almost eight million square feet Photo: AFP/GETTY
Hegemonic power is a heady aphrodisiac. Little wonder that this man, who loves the Black Sea coast so much that he built himself an impressively costly manor not far from Sochi, felt he could use a semi-tropical setting for a Winter Olympics setting, for like God, he too can make snow. And God, favouring him mightily, could be counted upon to smite any terrorist jihadis from the Caucasus who dare think they can make their own fireworks at Putin's party.
"Every subsequent city has a desire to outdo the previous one. It's a runaway train. "There's a lot of civic pride at stake. So civic leaders -- so-called fathers and mothers in the business community -- they take a lot of pride in their city hosting the Games and welcoming the world to their doorsteps. They just want to put on a great show and they're going to do whatever it takes to impress not just the spectators, but also the global media who come. They have to make a big splash and they have to spend money." Curt Hamakawa, former director, international relations, U.S. Olympic committee
PHOTO: Alexey Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives at Moscow's Red Square on Oct. 6, 2013, to start the Olympic Flame relay across Russia.Montreal, Quebec in 1976 was proud host to the Summer Games. It took Quebecers until 2006 to pay off their $1.5-billion Olympic debt. "After 1976, hosting the Games was not so attractive anymore", he observed. They became virtual white elephants", he remarked of even a megalopolis like Beijing struggling to find a use for its magnificent stadia once the Olympic torch moved onward. The city's 100,000-seat Bird's Nest National Stadium built for the 2008 Games became impossible to fill.
What rescued the games eventually from bankruptcy was the advent of corporate sponsorships and, said Mr. Hamakawa, "This is the model that has been in place ever since."
"The facilities we built were not going to be Taj Mahals", then chief of staff for the 1988 Calgary Winter Games said. "We looked around at Montreal and the 'Big Owe', and now the nonsense that is going on in Russia ... We were never out to build monuments. We set out to create good, functional facilities that could host the Olympics. If they remained and could be part of that legacy, that was great, but if they changed into something afterward, that was fine, too." Departments that went over budget, said Mr. Love were "sent to the woodshed".
"Money has driven awarding the rights to the Games. Who in their right mind would have put the Games in Sochi, otherwise? It makes no sense. I'm convinced that what drives them is money. The sponsorships get bigger and bigger. The entertainment packages get bigger and bigger. The TV rights get bigger and bigger. Everything gets bigger and bigger and it's just gotten out of hand", sputtered Bill Rathburn, a veteran security consultant involved in preparations for the 2006 Atlantic Games.
For the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, $1-billion was spent for security costs, and it was paid for by the federal government. Sochi's proximity to Chechen extremists make that venue a far more attractive target for terrorists than any other previous Games site. "You can't find a better opportunity to embarrass Russia or Putin than if they commit a terrorist act [in Sochi]. It would have an incredible impact around the world", Mr. Rathburn said.
"I think it would horrify people around the world. I think it would cause a lot of people to realize the exposure that's created every few years. There would be a tremendous process of re-thinking the feasibility and desirability of having the Olympic Games", he concluded, if a terrorist act turned out to be successful from the viewpoint of Islamists' jihadist agenda.
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