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| Russia bets big on World Cup economic revival Posted: 25 Jun 2011 09:27 PM PDT MOSCOW: Russia is making a multi-billion-dollar bet on the 2018 World Cup bringing wealth and promise to remote regions that have seen little progress since Soviet times.
But failure could crush the hopes of a generation of Russians living in the provinces and reinforce global investor doubts about a country whose bureaucracy is as notorious as its surly service. "Our government takes it all very seriously. Our regional governments take it very seriously. It is a great motivation to really change for the better," said Russia 2018 World Cup Organising Committee chief Alexei Sorokin.
The obvious benefits a World Cup can bring have been felt most in countries such as South Africa — places with needs and grand projects that refused to get off paper until it was time to prepare for the world's most watched event. Russia desperately wants to follow suit. It plans to pour up to $100 billion into high-speed rail development and upgrades stretching from the Gulf of Finland to the Ural Mountains host city of Yekaterinburg. Roads have been assigned double that figure while another $10 billion will be spent on more immediate projects linked to the World Cup such as airport and stadium renovation and the construction of hotels.
"We are already looking beyond 2018 at all the infrastructure services the World Cup will offer Russia," said British Embassy commercial team leader Damion Potter. "Stadiums are like candles on a cake," added Andrew Garbutt of the Los Angeles-based AECOM engineering and design firm. "They look pretty and they are there for a reason. But what really matters is the cake — the infrastructure — underneath." Organisers have the dual brief of making the hinterlands hospitable to the international masses while locking in long-term rewards. Russian football bosses speak gravely of "white elephants" that dot some less successful host cities and promise flexible-capacity stadiums that will suit local needs after the World Cup buzz fades. But some of the biggest excitement is around the high-speed rail lines. The one from Moscow to Saint Petersburg has been a pet Kremlin project but a second is now proposed for cities such as Kazan and possibly Yekaterinburg. Faster links are also planned throughout central and southern Russia — regions whose shambolic infrastructure is one of several big drags on investment. "What high-speed rail does, is it has a very big impact on the sustainability and legacy of a region. It provides social, economic and financial benefits not just in the short term but also in the longer term," AECOM's Garbutt said. "It brings investment to areas and starts more building in a number of areas that can be developed on." Yet the scale of the task at hand and the Kremlin's central role in it has some Western investors concerned. Current development around the Black Sea resort town of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games is already haunted by reports of graft and the money for the World Cup is exponentially bigger. "It would be recommended to hand things to an experienced international project manager," said Lorenz Schneider of the Tilke & Partners project management firm in Abu Dhabi. "In this context, in these circumstances, it would seem the appropriate thing to do." Russia still needs to change its laws so that refurbished sites can be privatised once completed and streamline a state tender process whose reliability has failed on many occasions in the past. But Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — the de facto leader who spearheaded Russia's World Cup drive — said that at stake was the "development of the entire infrastructure of the European part of the country." And officials from the FIFA world football governing body said this was the backing they were hoping for when awarding one of the world's most prestigious events to an Eastern European country for the first time. "The political support for this in Russia has been astounding," FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke told the Moscow forum. "I have personally not seen this level of political support anywhere before." -- AFP Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Wen in Britain on Europe tour as activist freed Posted: 25 Jun 2011 09:19 PM PDT LONDON: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday kicked off the first full day of a visit to Britain, as Beijing released high-profile human rights activist Hu Jia from prison.
China is trying to use the trip to gain a greater foothold in Europe, but has faced fierce criticism from Western powers over its human rights record and in particular a recent crackdown on dissent. The release of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei last week was widely seen as an effort to defuse the tensions.
The British stage of Wen's trip is aimed at strengthening economic and political ties between London and Beijing, and he will hold talks with Prime Minister David Cameron and attend the annual UK-China Summit. Around the time Wen arrived in Britain, China released Hu after he completed a sentence of more than three years for subversion and he returned to his home outside Beijing early Sunday morning, his wife said in a Twitter posting. "On a sleepless night, Hu Jia arrived home at 2:30 am. Peaceful, very happy. Need to rest for awhile. Thanks to you all," Zeng Jinyan, also an activist, wrote on her Twitter account.
Hu, 37, was jailed in April 2008, just months before the Beijing Olympics, after angering the ruling Communist Party through years of bold and outspoken campaigning for civil rights, the environment, and AIDS sufferers. His release came several days after Ai was freed on bail after nearly three months in police custody. His detention had drawn fierce international criticism. British officials had raised the issue with their Chinese counterparts at the highest level. Hague had given Ai's release only a cautious welcome, saying that "serious questions" remained about the circumstances of his detention and legal status. "I urge the Chinese authorities to clarify the exact details of the charges against him as soon as possible," he said at the time of the release. "I am also concerned by the cases of other activists, lawyers, journalists and bloggers detained in recent weeks, and call on the Chinese authorities to ensure they are treated in accordance with international human rights standards." On Sunday, Wen will visit the MG car plant in the Longbridge area of Birmingham, which was for many years a symbol of British manufacturing dominance but is now owned by SAIC Group, China's largest automaker. In a break from serious official duties, he will indulge his interest in Shakespeare with a visit to the bard's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he will be treated to a short performance. His next stop is London, where he will on Monday hold talks with Prime Minister David Cameron and attend the UK-China Summit, an annual event aimed at boosting ties during which business deals will be announced. The premier leaves Britain on Monday for Germany, the third stop on his tour. It is Wen's second Europe tour in just nine months, highlighting a shift in China's interest towards investing in the continent after having ploughed money in recent years into Africa, Australia, Latin America and the United States. Wen's tour comes amid an escalation in the eurozone debt crisis, centring again on Greece, which needs to push through new austerity measures next week to unlock crucial EU-IMF aid and stave off default. -- AFP Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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