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Rio Has Given Up On Clean Water For Olympics (go.com)
iONiUM writes: When bidding to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Jaineiro promised the International Olympics Committee that it would eliminate 80 percent of the sewage found in the city's notoriously filthy water, and would fully regenerate the lagoon in which rowing and kayaking events will be held. Now a few months from the start of the games, Rio has given up on keeping those promises. According to an article from Deadspin, "The U.S. will send 48 rowers to Rio, and they will be as forewarned and forearmed as the federation can make them, starting with squeeze bottles of hand sanitizer that will be distributed on the flight to Brazil. Hannafin says the athletes have been asked to get hepatitis A vaccinations and polio boosters and take the oral typhoid vaccine. Their oar handles will be bleached and their boats washed inside and out after each training session or competition. Gear will be laundered at a high enough temperature to kill microbes."
As much as it pains me to say (I'm a Brazilian), it's not a matter of being poor.
It's just about being stupid. We have had a lot of news about corruption right now and some imbeciles equate corruption with the current leadership. No doubt they are part of the problem, but Rio de Janeiro, for instance has been polluted for decades.
Crime has been somewhat tackled in recent years (probably because of the World Football/Soccer Cup), but results are mediocre, to be frank.
Instead of solving the problems, Politicians are opportunists and want to profit from every failure.
If one looks at a sufficient long time period -- say 20 years -- , it can be seen that things improved. But it all happens at snail pace.
Other people fixed their problems: Japan, Korea, Germany... we could have done it, too. But we get lost in Political bickering, we fail at bringing education to the masses and now we must face a lot of shame when inviting everyone to a party here.
Maybe we need to go through all this, maybe it's karma, I don't know... it's not like other countries don't have also their share of problems.
But it's quite a shame, indeed...