U.S Lack the Courage to Attack Israel: Ahmadinejad

BRASILIA News Update: Visiting Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said that US and Israeli military threats against Iran were a thing of the past, and that, in any case, “they don’t have the courage” to attack Iran.

“The age of military attacks is over, now we’ve reached the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats are a thing of the past,” the Iranian told a joint press conference with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, closing his one-day visit.

Fielding a question on whether he feared an attack from Israel or the United States, Ahmadinejad said armed confrontation was no longer a possibility.

That’s clear “even for mentally challenged people,” he said with a smile.

Besides, he added, “those you mention (Israel and United States) don’t have the courage to attack Iran. They’re not even thinking about it.”

Ahmadinejad met for three hours with Lula to discuss Iran’s controversial nuclear program, over which Lula urged Teheran to find a “just solution” with Western powers.

Hunger Summit Opens in Rome UN

ROME: A UN summit on the plight of the planet’s one billion hungry opens here Monday, with activists warning it risks being a waste of time as leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations are to be conspicuous by their absence.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the only leader from the Group of Eight industrialised countries expected to be among the 60 heads of state and government who attend the “Hunger Summit” that runs through Wednesday.

Pope Benedict XVI will be among the inaugural speakers at the meeting at the Rome headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Also expected at the summit are Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Moamer Kadhafi of Libya, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

As delegates gathered Sunday in Rome, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) made an early pledge of one billion dollars for joint projects with the FAO, the UN agency said. More than 400 delegates from around 70 countries will attend the forum.

Nobel Peace Prize Us Presidents

PARIS — Citizens and world leaders urged US President Barack Obama to seize on his surprise Nobel Peace Prize win to forge peace in the globe’s trouble spots and rid the world of nuclear weapons.
From Tokyo to Cape Town, news that the 48-year-old had won the prestigious award just nine months into his presidency was met by a mixture of shock and appeals for Obama to solve a host of local and global issues.

A “surprised” and “deeply humbled” Obama said he doubted he deserved the honour, but vowed to wield it as a “call to action” to lead a united world against its greatest challenges.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the prize as “America’s return to the hearts of the world’s peoples” after disenchantment with the previous presidency of George W. Bush.

Former UN chief Kofi Annan called it “an unexpected but inspired choice.” But the announcement was not universally lauded.

“Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast — he hasn’t had the time to do anything yet,” was the incredulous response of Lech Walesa, Poland’s historic trade union leader and the 1983 laureate.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro called the award a “positive measure.”

In an article, Castro said the Nobel committee decision was designed to criticize “the politics of genocide” pursued by Obama’s predecessors.

“I don’t always agree with decisions by this institution,” Castro wrote. “But this time, I recognize that it was a positive step.”

For others, Obama’s promotion to the rank of global peacemaker was an opportunity to give him some new assignments.

The prize is in “good hands,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, expressing “hope that world peace is a reality and that we have no more nuclear bombs.”

The Dalai Lama, who won the prestigious award in 1989, called on Obama to champion “freedom and liberty.”

The exiled Tibetan leader wrote a letter to Obama congratulating him even though the president, in an apparent bid not to upset China, avoided meeting him during the Dalai Lama’s weeklong visit to Washington.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Obama’s win was an “incentive” for all to do more for peace, adding that his goal of a nuclear-free world is one “we must all try to achieve in the coming years.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, meanwhile, said he hoped it would be a “boost to our joint efforts in forming a new climate in international politics and promoting initiatives that are critically important for global security.”

The 2008 laureate, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, noted that as Middle East peace efforts remain stalled, “this time, it was very clear that they wanted to encourage Obama to move on these issues.”

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas said he hoped the prize would help bring about an independent Palestinian state, but the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, decried Obama’s win.

“He did not do anything for the Palestinians except make promises,” said Hamas spokesman Samir Abu Zuhri.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, said the award “expresses the hope that your presidency will usher in a new era of peace and reconciliation.”

In Afghanistan, where the United States is in the ninth year of a bloody conflict against Taliban extremists, President Hamid Karzai hailed Obama’s “hard work and new vision on global relations.”

But the decision was condemned by the Taliban, who said he had “not taken a single step toward peace in Afghanistan.”

On the streets of Kabul, Afghans said they did not believe Obama’s policies had improved the situation in their war-ravaged country.

“The situation is getting worse here,” said shopkeeper Ahmad Tawab.

“At least I can say that he is better than George Bush,” said tailor Abdul Hakeem, 18.

The Nobel committee acted “hastily,” said arch foe Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, arguing a “good timing” for the prize would have been after US troops pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq “and the United States is standing up for the rights of the Palestinian people.”

UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei — another former winner — said Obama had “reached out across divides and made clear that he sees the world as one human family, regardless of religion, race or ethnicity.”

In Iraq, 45-year-old bank security guard Abu Istabraq said that Obama “really deserved this prize more than anyone else.”

Obama “was able to calm the situation in Iraq and other countries, and he made America reach out to Islamic and Arabic countries,” he said.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of Japan, the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack, said he saw “the world changing” since Obama entered the White House on January 20.

South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the prize in 1984, saw Obama as a younger incarnation of Nelson Mandela, a 1993 co-laureate.

“It is a very imaginative and somewhat surprising choice. It is wonderful,” he said in Cape Town.

Obama’s Kenyan relatives reacted with delight.

“It is an honour to the family… we are very happy that one of us has been honoured. We congratulate Barack,” Said Obama, the president’s step-brother, told AFP. Obama’s father was Kenyan and the president is considered a favourite son of the east African country.
Source: google.com

Rio De Janeiro Olympics 2016 Vote

COPENHAGEN — Like sweet, sultry samba music, Rio hit all the right notes. Chicago had Barack Obama. Tokyo had $4 billion in the bank. Madrid had powerful friends. But none of that mattered. Rio de Janeiro had the enchanting story – of about 400 million sports-mad people on a giant untapped and vibrant continent yearning, hoping, that the Olympics finally might come to them. And the International Olympic Committee was hooked.
Olympians, we’ll see you on Copacabana beach in 2016. Let Carnival begin.

On a chilly Danish evening of high drama, the IOC on Friday sent the games of the 31st Olympiad to Brazil’s bustling, fun-loving but crime-ridden city of beaches and mountains, romance and slums.

The IOC closed its eyes to the risks – the huge projected costs of the Rio Games, the concerns about how athletes will get around and where people will sleep – to focus on the reward of lighting the Olympic cauldron in one of the last corners of the globe yet to be bathed by its light.

“It is Brazil’s time,” said the country’s charismatic president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Chicago was knocked out in the first round – in one of the most shocking defeats ever handed down by the committee of former Olympians, sports administrators, royals and other VIPs.

While blues legend Buddy Guy twanged “Sweet Home Chicago” in a promotional video the city played to the IOC, bad blood between the committee and its U.S. branch – they’ve had flare-ups over revenue sharing and lucrative broadcasting rights – proved to be a note of discord. IOC members said the slap to Chicago was more directed at the U.S. Olympic Committee than to the Windy City itself.

The win was decisive: Rio beat Madrid by 66 votes to 32.

Chicago got just 18 votes in the first round, with Tokyo squeezing into the second round with 22. Madrid was leading after the first round with 28 votes, while Rio had 26.

In the second round, Tokyo was eliminated with just 20 votes. Madrid got 29, qualifying it for the final round face-off with Rio, which by then already had a strong lead with 46 votes.

The indignity suffered by Chicago – long considered a front-runner – was such that some IOC members squirmed. Obama flew overnight from Washington to sell his adoptive hometown and its plans for Olympic competition on Lake Michigan’s windy shores to the IOC. First lady Michelle Obama, with talk show host Oprah Winfrey and sports stars in tow, jetted in first and spent two days buttering up IOC members, an essential part of the secretive and unpredictable selection process.

IOC members seemed wowed, posing for photos with her and taking souvenir shots of the president with their cell phones. But, in the vote, Chicago was shunned.

Obama called Silva to congratulate him, but the nature of the loss still rang as a stinging anti-American rebuke. Close to half of the IOC’s 106 members are Europeans.

“To have the president of the United States and his wife personally appear, then this should happen in the first round is awful and totally undeserving,” senior Australian IOC member Kevan Gosper said.

French IOC member Guy Drut said “an excess of security” for the Obamas unsettled some of his colleagues. He complained that he’d been barred from crossing the lobby of his hotel for security reasons, and he grumbled that “nothing has been done” to resolve the financial disputes between the IOC and the USOC.

Of Obama’s performance, Drut said: “He didn’t do too much. Michelle Obama was exceptional.”

“This morning the city was closed because of Barack Obama,” he added.

In Chicago, there was bewildered silence when IOC president Jacques Rogge announced: “The city of Chicago, having obtained the least number of votes, will not participate in the next round.”

On Rio’s Copacabana beach, where nearly 50,000 people roared when the winning city was announced, the party headed into the night.

Rio spoke to IOC members’ consciences: the city argued that it was simply unfair that South America has never hosted the games, while Europe, Asia and North America have done so repeatedly.

“It is a time to address this imbalance,” Silva told the IOC before it delivered its verdict. “It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country.”

Madrid’s surprising success in reaching the final round came after former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch made a morbid appeal for the Spanish capital, reminding IOC members as he asked for their vote that, at age 89, “I am very near the end of my time.”

Samaranch ran the IOC for 21 years before Rogge took over in 2001.

Beating three rich, more developed nations that had all previously held the games represented a giant, morale-boosting coup for Brazil. The emerging nation is bounding up the ranks of the world’s biggest economies but still has millions of people living in poverty.

Like a football team before a big final, Rio’s bid leaders and Silva held hands in silent prayer before walking out to deliver a flawless and impassioned presentation. A bid official said Silva’s last words of encouragement were “let’s stay calm, and stick with our plan.”

Brazil’s central bank governor reeled off impressive statistics about an economy predicted to be the world’s fifth-largest by 2016. The state governor pledged that taxes would not be raised for the games and played down safety concerns. Computer-generated bird’s-eye images of how venues will spread across the city, with sailing in the shadow of Sugar Loaf mountain and volleyball on Copacabana, provided the wow factor.

Then Silva delivered the knockout.

“Among the top 10 economies of the world, Brazil is the only country that has not hosted the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” he said. “For the Olympic movement, it will be an opportunity to feel the warmth of our people, the exuberance of our culture, the sun of our joy and it will also be a chance to send a powerful message to the whole world: The Olympic Games belong to all peoples, to all continents and to all humanity.”

Silva, a bearded former union leader, disappeared into a huge group hug with the joyous Rio team after Rogge announced that the city had won. Football great Pele had tears in his eyes. Brazil will now hold the world’s two biggest sporting events in the space of just two years: in 2014, it is hosting the World Cup.

“There was absolutely no flaw in the bid,” Rogge said.

Now, Africa and Antarctica are the only continents never to have been awarded an Olympics.

“We have sent out a message that we want to go global,” IOC member Gerhard Heiberg said.

Obama held out the enticing prospect of a Chicago games helping to reconnect the United States with the world after the presidency of George W. Bush. He told the IOC that the “full force of the White House” would be applied so “visitors from all around the world feel welcome and will come away with a sense of the incredible diversity of the American people.”

An uncomfortable moment came during Chicago’s presentation when an IOC member from Pakistan, Syed Shahid Ali, noted that going through U.S. customs can be harrowing for foreigners. Obama responded that he wanted a Chicago games to offer “a reminder that America at its best is open to the world.”

But the IOC’s last two experiences in the United States were bad: the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were sullied by a bribery scandal and logistical problems and a bombing hit the 1996 Games in Atlanta.

Former IOC member Kai Holm said the brevity of Obama’s appearance – he was in and out in five hours – may have hurt Chicago.

“Too businesslike,” Holm said. “It can be that some IOC members see it as a lack of respect.”

IOC members said Asian voters may have banded together, at Chicago’s expense, in the first round in favor of Tokyo, which offered reassurances of financial security, with $4 billion already banked for the games.

“The whole thing doesn’t make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote,” Gosper said. The last U.S. city to bid for the Summer Games, New York, did scarcely better. It was ousted in the second round in the 2005 vote that gave the 2012 Games to London.
Source: huffingtonpost.com