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Today’s R&D provides resources on China winning the bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Beijing will be the host city for the event, becoming the first city in history to host both a Winter and Summer Olympics. The decision by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) was made somewhat by default as there were only two choices – Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan – after the Norwegian government withdrew its support for Oslo hosting the Games. Human rights advocates have criticized the choice, arguing that China’s human rights record has not improved since hosting the Summer Olympics in 2008, but the IOC says that Beijing’s hosting of the Winter Olympics will expose hundreds of millions of people to winter sports. The IOC has also had to deal with the reluctance of some Western cities to host future Olympics as Boston, Massachusetts abandoned a possible bid for hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics due to concerns about cost.
Chinese are far less excited about Beijing 2022 than they were for the 2008 games. Here’s why http://t.co/mG7QWv6V9b pic.twitter.com/zN77zBvMoO
— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) August 4, 2015
Snow joke: China gets the 2022 winter Olympics http://t.co/90GH6dGNgA pic.twitter.com/V2F91ZEUxz
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 3, 2015
2022 Olympics Leave China Beaming From Its Growing Clout http://t.co/DChfbfaN28
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 1, 2015
Although environmental and animal rights activists have advocated for stronger anti-poaching efforts for the last several decades, their efforts never attracted sustained media attention outside of a few notable campaigns during the late 1980s and various periods throughout the 1990s. This all changed with reports about the death of Cecil the Lion, a significant tourist attraction at Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. Cecil was killed several weeks ago by American dentist Walter J. Palmer of Minnesota, who is said to have paid $50,000 for the ability to hunt and kill an African lion. The incident created a firestorm of international outrage, with people blasting Palmer on Twitter and many donating funds to wildlife and anti-poaching groups. However, the question remains over whether the outrage over Cecil’s killing will be a turning point in terms of attention paid and resources diverted to strengthening global anti-poaching efforts and protecting threatened species. Over the last fifteen years, African nations have struggled to maintain their existing wildlife and international controls on the ivory trade have weakened. Fixing both problems will be necessary if poaching efforts can be curtailed and threatened species such as lions, elephants, rhinos, and tigers can be protected more effectively.
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