“Cambodia Burning,” a documentary by filmmaker Sean Gallagher, throws light on the effect Cambodia’s unfettered logging has had on the country’s forest ecosystem. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke to the award-winning filmmaker
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Day: April 7, 2021
George Bradley used to love watching the Academy Awards. The 28-year-old Brit now living in San Diego would stay up late back home just to tune in.
Though he’s now in the right time zone, he’s just not interested, and that’s due primarily to the pandemic.
“The rising dominance of the streaming services has taken the gloss off the Oscars for me,” he said. “You just don’t get the same warm fuzzy feeling from when you recognize a movie from the silver screen.”
Whether you watch out of love, because you love to hate or have given up like Bradley, awards shows have suffered since the coronavirus shuttered theaters and shut down live performances. But the ratings slide for awards nights began well before Covid-19 took over.
For much of this century, the Oscars drew 35 million to 45 million viewers, often just behind the Super Bowl. Last year, just before the pandemic was declared, the hostless telecast on ABC was seen by its smallest audience ever, 23.6 million viewers, down 20 percent from the year before.
The pandemic-era Golden Globes a little more than a year later plummeted to 6.9 million viewers, down 64% from last year and barely besting 2008, the year a writer’s strike forced NBC to air a news conference announcing winners. Last year, pre-lockdown, the show had 18.4 million viewers, according to the Nielsen company.
In March, Grammy producers avoided the Zoom awkwardness of other awards shows and staged performances by some of the industry’s biggest stars — to no avail. The CBS telecast reached 9.2 million viewers, both television and streaming, the lowest number on record and a 51% drop from 2020, Nielsen said.
John Bennardo, 52, in Boca Raton, Florida, is a film buff, film school graduate and screenwriter, and runs a videography business for mostly corporate clients. This year is a no-go for the Oscars.
“I love the movies and aspire to be on that very Oscars stage receiving my own award some day,” he said. “I watch each year and take it in, enter contests where I try to pick winners and try to see all the films. But something has changed for this year.”
For starters, he hasn’t seen a single film nominated in any category.
“Maybe I’ll watch Zach Snyder's Justice League' instead. It might be shorter," Bennardo joked about the Oscars show.Oh my god, I can’t believe she wore that.’ Another thing is, I don’t particularly need to see these actors in their home environments,” she said with a laugh. “This year, if I missed it, it wouldn’t be tragic. Nobody would need to lay cable this year. But I still love the movies.”
Like other awards shows, the Oscars telecast was pushed back due to pandemic restrictions and safety concerns. The show had been postponed three times before in history, but never so far in advance. Organizers last June scheduled it for April 25, as opposed to its usual slot in February or early March.
Count that among other driving forces behind Oscars fatigue. Another, according to former fans of the show, is having to watch nominated movies on small screens and keeping up with when and where they are available on streaming and on-demand services. It's been one big blur to some.
Priscilla Visintine, 62, in St. Louis, Missouri, used to live for watching the Academy Awards. She attended watch parties every year, usually dressed all the way up for the occasion.
"Definitely the shuttering of the theaters created my lack of interest this year," she said. "I didn't get any sense of Oscar buzz."
Not all diehards have given up their favorite awards show.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, 50-year-old Jennifer Rice and her 22-year-old son, Jordan, have for years raced to watch as many nominated films as possible. In years past, it was their "February Madness," she said, and they kept charts to document their predictions. She even got to attend the Oscars in 2019 through her work for a beauty company at the time.
"My other two children, ages 25 and 19, have no interest in the Oscars. It's just something special for Jordan and I," Rice said. "The Oscars actually push us to watch movies that we may have never picked. I'm not as excited this year, but we're still trying to watch everything before the awards ceremony."
As real-life hardship has intensified for many viewers, from food insecurity and job disruption to the isolation of lockdowns and parenting struggles, awards shows offer less escapism and razzle-dazzle than in the past, often relying on pre-taped performances and Zoom boxes for nominees. In addition, data shows little interest among younger generations for appointment television in general.
Lifelong lover of movies and a filmmaker himself, 22-year-old Pierre Subeh of Orlando, Florida, stopped watching the Oscars in 2019.
"We can barely stay put for a 15-second TikTok. How are we expected to sit through a dragged out, four-hour awards ceremony filled with ads and outdated offensive jokes? We're living in the time of content curation. We need algorithms to figure out what we want to watch and to show us the best of the best," he said.
As a Muslim, Middle Eastern immigrant, Subeh also sees little inclusion of his culture in mainstream film, let alone on the Oscars stage.
"We're only mentioned when Aladdin is brought up. I don't feel motivated to gather up my family on a Sunday to sit through a four-hour award ceremony that never has any sort of mention about our culture and religion. Yet as Muslims, we make up roughly 25% of the world population," he said.
Jon Niccum, 55, in Lawrence, Kansas, teaches screenwriting at Kansas State University. He's a filmmaker, went to film school and has worked as a film critic. He and his wife host an annual Oscar party, with 30 guests at its heyday, including a betting pool on winners for money and prizes. It will be family-only this year due to the pandemic, but the betting is on.
And watching all the top films at home? For the most part, he said, "It was less satisfying." Less satisfying enough to dump the Oscars telecast?
"I haven't missed an Oscars since 45 years ago. I'll watch every single minute of it," Niccum said.
In Medford, New Jersey, 65-year-old Deb Madison will also be watching, as she has since she was a kid and her mom first took her to the movies.
In 2018, while on an RV road trip with her husband, she made him bike into town with her in Carlsbad, New Mexico, to find a spot to watch. The ride back was in pitch darkness. Another year, when she was working reception at a huge party in Philadelphia on Oscars night, the coordinators laid cable and provided her with a tiny TV hidden under the welcome desk so she could tune in.
This year, trying to keep up with nominees from home has stifled her excitement, Madison said.
"I'm a sucker for the red carpet and the gowns and,
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U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant originally identified in Britain is now the most common strain of the virus that causes COVID-19 circulating in the United States.During the White House COVID-19 response team briefing, Walensky said the variant has been shown to be more transmissible and infectious among younger Americans, which she says contributed to rising case counts in recent weeks. The CDC director said the latest figures show the U.S. seven-day daily case average rose by 2.3% from the previous seven days to 62,878 per day. She also said there are reports of clusters of cases associated with day care centers and youth sports across the country.Hospital admissions have also been up by about 2.7% per day over the last week. Walensky said they are seeing more and more younger adults, those in their 30s and 40s, admitted with severe cases of the disease.She said that while the U.S. is now vaccinating an average of three million Americans daily, the encouraging news is tempered by the increased rates and spread of the virus.She said the U.S. needs to continue ramping up its vaccination program, but communities need to do their part, as well.Walensky encouraged communities to consider adjustments to meet their unique needs and circumstances. Areas seeing substantial or high community transmission, she said, should consider refraining from indoor youth sports or activities that cannot be conducted at least six feet apart. Similarly, she said large events should also be deferred.Her comments come following the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball team hosting a crowd of 38,000 fans for its home opener this week.
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The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) reports it is covering the cost of health insurance for an additional 20,000 Afghan refugees in Iran. This boosts the number of refugees to 120,000 who will be able to access medical care for COVID-19 and other illnesses under Iran’s national health plan.
Iran hosts nearly 800,000 Afghan refugees. Over the past year, the UNHCR has paid insurance premiums for 100,000 of the most vulnerable refugees. Given the dangers posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it now has boosted that number by another 20,000.
UNHCR spokesman Babar Balloch says Iran is one of only a handful of countries in the world that allows refugees to sign up for its national health insurance and receive the same treatment as its nationals.
“The national insurance scheme allows for free COVID-19 treatment and hospitalization. It also subsidizes the cost of surgeries, dialysis, radiology, laboratory tests, out-patient care and more. However, many refugees are not able to afford the premium costs,” he said.
Balloch said the pandemic has severely affected the ability of refugees to earn a living as they usually rely on precarious and unstable jobs. The cost of health care, he said, is unaffordable for most refugees as it represents about 40% of a refugee family’s monthly expenses.
And, yet, in the time of COVID, accessing treatment could be a matter of life or death. The World Health Organization reports Iran is the most COVID-affected country in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The latest data show more than 1.9 million cases, including 63,000 deaths.
The UNHCR warns fewer refugees are likely to seek treatment for urgent health needs if they are unable to afford health insurance. The agency says it may not be able to continue subsidizing the cost of insurance premiums for the refugees due to its tight budget. The agency notes this year’s UNHCR funding appeal of $97 million is only 7% funded.
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“Cambodia Burning,” a documentary by filmmaker Sean Gallagher, throws light on the effect Cambodia’s unfettered logging has had on the country’s forest ecosystem. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke to the award-winning filmmaker
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Scores of Cameroonians with kidney failure and their relatives have blocked traffic since Monday around a Yaoundé hospital to protest a shortage of dialysis treatment. Cameroon authorities blame administrative procedures and coronavirus disruptions for slowing the import of dialysis machines and medicines. Traffic was at a standstill in Yaounde’s Melen neighborhood this week as hundreds of patients with kidney failure, and their relatives, protested a halt to treatment at the Yaoundé University Teaching Hospital. Among the kidney patients who sat or lay on the road in front of the hospital is 54-year-old Emmanuel Pierre Essi. He says their protest began on Monday after at least seven kidney patients died within three weeks due to lack of treatment. People living with kidney failure being treated at Yaoundé University Teaching Hospital. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)Essi says he and many of his peers may die after missing at least six sessions of hemodialysis for the past two weeks. He says the Yaoundé University Teaching Hospital has only five hemodialysis machines for over 160 patients. Essi says old age and overuse have crumbled the machines and patients who need four hours of dialysis per session, now take seven hours to filter and purify their blood in the dialysis machine. He says kidney patients also lack hemodialysis kits and dialysis fluid. Cameroonian health officials are pleading with the patients to halt their protest while the government tries to fix the problems. The government says that since the coronavirus pandemic began last year, it has been unable to import dialysis equipment and medicine from suppliers abroad due to travel restrictions and the economic slowdown. Felicien Ntone, deputy director of the Yaoundé University Teaching Hospital, says kidney patients who become critical will be transferred to other dialysis centers. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)The hospital’s deputy director, Felicien Ntone, says officials are trying to secure the equipment needed for dialysis treatment. He says Cameroon and its suppliers in Europe and China are examining the best possible ways to speed the shipment of dialysis kits and dialysis machine spare parts to Cameroon. Ntone says the government has agreed to urgently release funds for the purchase of hemodialysis kits. Ntone says kidney patients who become critical will be transferred to other dialysis centers.He says hospitals are negotiating with the government to allow the buying of medicines and equipment without passing through a long procurement process. Meanwhile, on the third day of the demonstration, some of the protesters are refusing to back down. Yaoundé University student Donald Yaje’s parent has kidney failure. Yaje vows to keep protesting until the government provides the needed treatment. “We cannot be indifferent while our relatives are dying,” he said. “We want the government to look for a way of importing equipment instead of always complaining that the coronavirus has [imposed] restrictions to the shipment of goods from Europe. They should not forget kidney patients while struggling to stop corona.” Patients undergoing dialysis treatment at Yaoundé University Teaching Hospital. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)Cameroonian health authorities say the country has about 2,500 patients with acute kidney infections, up from 400 in 2012. There are about seven towns in Cameroon with dialysis centers, with five dialysis machines at each. Yaoundé has two such centers — the largest with 20 dialysis machines. But health authorities acknowledge they are often not working as a result of overuse and poor power supply.
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India has become the global hotspot for the COVID-19 pandemic, counting the world’s highest numbers of daily new infections in recent days as it grapples with a second wave of the pandemic weeks after witnessing a dramatic decline. The impact of the swift surge in the virus, in the world’s biggest vaccine maker, will be felt far beyond its shores as India slows vaccine shipments to other countries. Health experts blame many people in the vast populous country for virtually abandoning COVID protocols as cases tumbled earlier this year. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
People walk at a crowded market amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the old quarters of Delhi, India, Apr. 6, 2021.India is unlikely to impose a national lockdown that extracted a huge economic cost, but worst affected areas in the country are reimposing restrictions. The western state of Maharashtra, the country’s most economically developed state, is the epicenter of the new wave reporting nearly 60% of the country’s cases. Its capital, Mumbai, reimposed a partial lockdown this week shutting down shops, restaurants and monuments and ordering a complete shutdown on weekends. The Indian capital, New Delhi has imposed a night curfew. In cities that had resumed normal life, the millions who had returned to their casual jobs are worried. “I really hope there is no strict lockdown again,” says Kavita Kamble who works as a cook in several homes in Mumbai. “Last year we had no work for six-seven months. We were all sitting at home. Only we know how we coped.” To stem the rapid rise of infections, India has accelerated its immunization drive which began in January. After inoculating health care workers and senior citizens, health officials began targeting the younger age groups believed to be driving the rising numbers. People sit in a waiting area to receive a dose of COVISHIELD, a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India, at a vaccination center in Ahmedabad, India, Apr. 2, 2021.”The pandemic isn’t over and there is no scope for complacency,” Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Twitter, urging people to get “vaccinated on your turn and follow COVID-appropriate behavior scrupulously!” The #Pandemic isn’t over and there is no scope for complacency
On #WorldHealthDay2021 infuse greater zeal to #Unite2FightCorona, get vaccinated on your turn & follow COVID appropriate behaviour scrupulously! @PMOIndia@MoHFW_INDIA#LargestVaccineDrivehttps://t.co/KSqfJ1xriq
— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) FILE – Boxes of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and provided through the global COVAX initiative arrive at the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, March 15, 2021.“I really want to deliberately hope that it is a delay, not a ban because that would be catastrophic if that was the case,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a news conference earlier this month in Addis Ababa. “Then meeting vaccination schedule becomes problematic, very, very problematic.”
India defended its decision pointing out that it had shipped vaccines to more than 80 countries.
“We have already stated that our external supplies would be done, keeping in mind our domestic requirements,” Arindam Bagchi, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said recently at a press briefing. “At this time, I’m sure our partners understand that vaccines are primarily purposed for domestic consumption.” It has also clarified that there is no outright ban. India’s own needs are huge. Although the more than 87 million jabs it has administered are among the largest in the world, they have reached less than 7% of the population. The course of India’s second wave will be critical not just for the vast South Asian nation, but also for other countries waiting to get jabs into as many arms as possible.
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The race is on between COVID-19 vaccinations and the continuing evolution of coronavirus variants that threaten to undermine them.As vaccination ramps up in the United States and cases decline, people are letting their guard down, including those who are not vaccinated.But public health experts are urging people not to let loose just yet.The virus is not done evolving, they note. Some variants have already emerged with traits that weaken the protection the vaccines provide against the virus. The more it spreads, the more chances it has to get better at ducking the vaccines’ defenses.FILE – In this Jan. 26, 2021 file photo, arriving passengers walk past a sign in the arrivals area at Heathrow Airport in London, during England’s third national lockdown since the coronavirus outbreak began.Power of vaccinationSo far, the vaccines are proving their worth.Until recently, the only results available were from tightly controlled clinical trials. Now that the vaccines are rolling out, real-world studies are rolling in.”You’re always worried, if you start giving these doses, if they’re not handled right, et cetera, et cetera, will they function as well? And yes, they have,” said University of Michigan School of Public Health epidemiologist Arnold Monto, who chairs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee for COVID-19 vaccines.The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were 90% effective in preventing any kind of infection, with or without symptoms, in a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study of health care and other front-line workers. They even provided 80% effectiveness after just one dose.Another CDC study of nursing home residents, who are among the most vulnerable to serious illness and death from COVID-19, found that just the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine gave 63% protection. The elderly have been hit hardest by COVID-19. More than 80% of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States have been among people over age 65, according to the CDC. Now that more than half of all senior citizens have received at least one dose of vaccine, deaths and hospitalizations are down sharply nationwide.”It’s good news with regard to the power of vaccination,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Monday.But the number of people under 50 hospitalized with COVID-19 has ticked up in recent weeks as cases have increased, she noted.People wear masks on their faces before taking a taxi on a major thoroughfare in Casablanca, Morocco, April 6, 2021. Moroccan authorities have announced the discovery of a new local variant of the coronavirus and extended a nighttime curfew.Fourth wave?Pandemic fatigue, improving weather and loosening government restrictions have led to an increase in infections and a sense of deja vu among experts.”There is a lot of concern that we’re not doing the things that we should be in order to keep this virus in check,” said epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.Walensky told reporters last week that she felt a sense of “impending doom” over the direction the trends were headed.Some experts are concerned that a fourth wave of infections is starting, driven by more infectious variants of the virus.While most models do not show a spike of the magnitude of previous ones the United States experienced, “there are signs that the decline [in cases] is slowing,” said Michael Li, part of the COVID Analytics group at the MIT Operations Research Center. “So, we’re sort of ending back into a plateau stage again.”What especially concerns scientists, however, is that the longer the virus circulates, the more chances it has to mutate into a more dangerous form.Global variantsThe variant that first appeared in South Africa is perhaps the most concerning so far. It contains an array of mutations that allows the virus to evade the immune system better than the original strain. In a clinical trial, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was 57% effective in South Africa, compared to 72% in the United States, where this variant was not common. On the plus side, it was 85% effective against the most severe cases in all locations.AstraZeneca’s vaccine fared even worse against the South African variant. It was only 10% effective against mild-to-moderate cases, though severe cases were not studied. Another strain, first spotted in Brazil, spreads faster and also seems to be able to infect some people who had already been infected before. Another, recently reported from Tanzania, contains the most mutations recorded so far, including many of the same ones as the South African variant. Not all worrisome variants are found overseas. Two strains found in California are on the CDC’s list of variants of concern, and two identified in New York are also of interest. They have some of the same mutations as the South African and Brazilian variants. Antibody treatments do not work against them.”We’re in a bit of an arms race,” Columbia’s Shaman said. “We’re going to have to make new treatments, new monoclonal antibodies, new variants of the vaccine, potentially, if we see more and more of these variants arising.”And the more the virus spreads, he said, the more variants will arise.
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As the U.S. nears reaching its goal of vaccinating 200 million Americans by the end of April, the Biden administration is taking more steps toward helping other nations by appointing a coordinator for its global COVID-19 response. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
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The political dispute over a new election law in the southern state of Georgia has broadened into a debate over whether the United States should participate in a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price acknowledged the U.S. will discuss with allies whether to jointly boycott the games to protest Beijing’s repression of minorities and major human rights abuses. “A coordinated approach will be not only in our interest but also in the interest of our allies and partners,” he told reporters at a daily briefing. But he stressed that no final decision has been reached. The administration signaled a willingness to consider such a move shortly after conservative Republicans demanded that President Joe Biden justify U.S. participation in the games. The Republican lawmakers were annoyed with Biden’s support for a protest against the Georgia law, including Major League Baseball’s decision to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta, and claimed the administration was being hypocritical by not boycotting the Olympics. Staff members sit near a board with signs of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, at the National Aquatics Center, known colloquially as the “Ice Cube”, in Beijing, China, April 1, 2021.Activists around the world have been demanding that countries boycott the Beijing Games to protest the country’s domestic policies, including what the U.S. State Department has called the “genocide” of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province and its crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. While there has been some discussion of the possibility of the U.S. boycotting the Winter Olympics or limiting participation, the issue hasn’t had much salience until now. There appears to be a growing effort to change that after Biden said in an interview last week with the sports television channel ESPN that he would back Major League Baseball’s decision to move its annual All-Star Game out of Georgia in response to the state’s new election statute. Voter suppression claims In the wake of surprising Democratic victories in the general election and in two Senate runoff elections — the latter of which gave Democrats complete control of Congress — Georgia’s heavily Republican legislature passed a raft of measures changing the state’s voting laws. While there is debate about how restrictive the rules are, the general consensus is that some elements of the law will make it more difficult to vote in the state’s urban areas, which are racially diverse and skew Democratic, and will widen access in rural and predominantly white areas that favor Republicans. Widespread anger at the law’s impact on minority voters was led in part by highly visible professional athletes. So last week, when Biden sat down for the ESPN interview, he was asked his opinion on what was then only the possibility that Major League Baseball would move the All-Star Game. “I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly,” Biden said. “I would strongly support them doing that.” FILE – Ground crews work at Sun Trust Park, now known as Truist Park, in Atlanta, Oct. 7, 2018. Truist Park lost the 2021 All-Star Game on April 2, when Major League Baseball moved the game over the objections to Georgia’s new election law.Two days later, when the league announced it would shift the All-Star Game out of Atlanta to Denver, Colorado, the condemnation on the political right was swift. Amid the complaints about “cancel culture” and “wokeness,” a number of conservative commentators and elected officials coalesced around the demand that Biden justify U.S. participation in the Olympics, given the Chinese government’s treatment of its own people. “When Joe Biden decides to boycott the Olympics in China, where the Communist Chinese regime is committing genocide, then he can weigh in on Georgia,” Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee wrote on Twitter. “We can’t wait to see what the U.S. President is going to say about China’s voting rules,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote. “There are no lines at polling places in the Middle Kingdom, because there are no polling places, no absentee ballot controversies because there are no ballots. … Perhaps Mr. Biden can compare the voting rules in Georgia to those in the re-education camps in Xinjiang province.” The Journal’s editors say they do not support a boycott, even as they demand Biden explain why he isn’t calling for one. Backing for boycottHowever, there has also been a chorus of opposition to full U.S. participation in the Beijing Games among conservative lawmakers for several years. Recommended actions have included everything from a full-blown boycott to a more limited “diplomatic boycott” that would see a junior member of the Biden administration heading the U.S. delegation to the games, rather than the president or vice president. Last month, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who was president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, called for a combined economic and diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter games. In a New York Times op-ed, he wrote, “Let us demonstrate our repudiation of China’s abuses in a way that will hurt the Chinese Communist Party rather than our American athletes: reduce China’s revenues, shut down their propaganda, and expose their abuses.” Athletes take part in a curling competition held as a test event for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, at the National Aquatics Center, in Beijing, China, April 1, 2021.Jules Boykoff, a professor of political science at Pacific University and author of four books about the politics of the Olympics, said, “A lot of the arguments for boycotting the games, or moving them, have actually emerged out of Republican circles. (Florida Senator) Marco Rubio, for example, has been on top of it for a long time, as has (Congressman) Christopher Smith in New Jersey.” Boykoff said there has been some Democratic support as well. “Here in the United States, China has become sort of an all-purpose, bipartisan political punching bag. And so, Democrats also have been speaking out a lot about China in general, and then more recently about this idea of the possibility of boycotting the Olympics. So, there’s bipartisan support for considering the possibility.” Full boycott unlikely Some experts, however, believe there is little likelihood of anything more than the limited diplomatic boycott taking place. Victor A. Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Boston who studies the economics of sports, said that historically, Olympic boycotts have been very unpopular within the country doing the boycotting because “athletes lose the opportunity to compete, and in many sports, this is your only opportunity to monetize your perhaps decades of work.” He added, “I would be very surprised if we boycotted. It would be, I think, very politically difficult for Biden, mainly because so many Americans, their hearts really do go out to the athletes themselves, who would miss this opportunity.” But the fact that the discussion is taking place might be a sign that in the future, human rights abuses could become a major consideration when international organizations are considering bids to host major events. Boykoff said Major League Baseball’s actions in Georgia and the calls to boycott the Beijing Games might be part of a larger trend. While the complexities of derailing the Winter Olympics are orders of magnitude greater than those of moving a single baseball game, he said, he sees them as part of a “larger zeitgeist.”
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