News in brief
26.03.2007
By Play the GameNew global network in sport to promote physical activity
A new sports network, the Agita Mundo Network (Move for Health), has been launched, with the goal of promoting physical activity as a healthy behaviour for people of all ages, nations, and characteristics.
Agita Mundo will stimulate research, encourage the dissemination of information on the health benefits of physical activity and effective strategies to increase physical activity, advocate for physical activity and health, and support the development of national and local programmes and networks for physical activity promotion.
The network’s webpage is available in Spanish, English and Portuguese. The network was founded in Brazil, and has member institutions from all over the world.
Conference on doping and corruption in sport
The 2007 Sports & Law Conference in Berlin will include presentations and discussion on doping and corruption in professional sport and sport for all.
The media increasingly connects sport with manipulation, especially with the issues of doping and corruption. The International Sport Lawyers Association (ISLA), TAFISA, ICSSPE and the Berlin Sports Confederation (LSB Berlin) have chosen this topic for the Sports & Law Conference Berlin 2007.
Conference presentations and discussion will focus upon legal questions in professional sport and sport for all. Conference languages will be English and German, with simultaneous translation available. Registration is possible until 10 April 2007.
The Beijing Olympiad, China's human rights record and western orientalism
Dr. Paul Close has kindly provided us with a personal introduction to his book, The Beijing Olympiad: The Political Economy of a Sporting Mega-Event, which examines the issues that have been relevant in his research into the Games and will continue to be so during the Beijing Games.
As co-author of The Beijing Olympiad, Close has analysed China’s approach to the Olympic Games, as well as the intense interest in how China will treat the Western inspired Olympics. The Games will undoubtedly be the playing field for more than sports in the summer of 2008, and global developments, within which all sport is embedded, will be played out.
Close and his co-authors believe that the Games will be an important step in consolidating China’s status as a global superpower, as well as in encouraging progress in the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) human rights record in accordance with the Western cultural account, and perhaps – but only perhaps – in helping amend Western Orientalism.
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