The City of Cape Town’s latest housing initiative is to relocate street children and homeless people 30 km away from the city centre. Critics call the plan a ‘clean-up operation’ for the World Cup, while the municipal government defends it as a humane programme that happens to coincide with the tournament.

An American freelance journalist was detained at Vancouver’s airport for several hours and then rejected entrance into Canada allegedly due to his involvement in anti-Games organisations.

South Africa’s Competition Commission (CC) has started an investigation into price-fixing among six leading airlines that will take thousands of supporters to this summer’s World Cup finals in South Africa.

FIFA have met with the South Africa media pressure group concerned over the implications of the press accreditation rules for this summer’s world cup but are refusing to disclose details of the meeting on January 21.

The opening of the stadium that will host this year’s World Cup Final in South Africa has been delayed.

Last month an American journalist was detained and questioned at length by Canadian border guards who wanted to know if she was planning to do any public speaking on the 2010 Winter Olympics. The journalist was shocked, but the Canadian authorities say the incident was within legal limits. Critics say that it is a part of a concerted effort to stifle dissent on Olympic issues.

The next four years will show to which extent Rogge will succeed in becoming the great reformer of the Olympic movement that he was expected to when he took office in 2001.

Despite discussions of whether the process of election of the new Olympic sports have been sufficiently transparent, rugby and golf were elected as the two newcomers to join the existing 26 Olympic sports by 2016.