Beijing 2008, Sochi 2014, Rio 2016: BRIC nations are having an Olympic boom.  It is an unfortunate fact, however, that the Olympic Games tend to spell trouble for civil liberties when taking place in authoritarian regimes.  One only has to look at the notorious examples of human rights infringements occurring before the Beijing event for confirmation - as Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch does in today's Washington Post.  Will the questionable property expropriations, hushing of foreign journalists and despoliation of local ecosystems familiar to Beijing also be witnessed at the Sochi Games in 2014?Why worry now about the Sochi Games? This year alone, several Russian rights activists and journalists have been killed within a few hundred miles of Sochi. ...

Turkey. Holiday. All Inclusive...

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.In Antalya (Turkey), the International Congress of Journalists has ended. As a rank-and-file participant in this congress ( I represented the freelancer class, and, in part, the blog www.robertamsterdam.com), I could not help but notice that just about the main participants in the event were top-level representatives of the tour-business of Turkey. By the way, this is understandable: with this participation they were killing, at a minimum, two birds with one stone: they sponsored the congress and were counting on Russian journalists one way or another writing something about Turkey and holidaying in it.

They guessed right:

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NIKE, Inc. (NKE) reported mixed financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended May 31, 2009. Fourth quarter results affected both top and bottom lines, mainly on account of the global economic slowdown leading to lower consumer spending and foreign exchange volatility.At the same time, NKE displayed prudent inventory management (inventory is down 3% year-over-year), and cornered another incremental slice of the market.NKE's net income dropped to $341.4 million (EPS $0.70, basic and diluted) in the reported quarter, down from the year-ago figure of $490.5 million (EPS $0.98 diluted, $1.00 basic). Similarly revenues were down 7.4% year-over-year to $4.71 billion from $5.09 billion.However the comparison is clouded since the year-ago numbers were boosted by the run-up to the European Football Championships and Olympics. Although excluding changes in currency exchange rates, net revenue was flat over the year-ago period....