RIO DE JANEIRO — It was supposed to be a triumphant moment for Brazil.
Gearing up for the 2016 Olympic Games to be held here, officials celebrated plans for a futuristic “Olympic Park,” replete with a waterside park and athlete villages, promoting it as “a new piece of the city.”
There was just one problem: the 4,000 people who already live in that part of Rio de Janeiro, in a decades-old squatter settlement that the city wants to tear down. Refusing to go quietly and taking their fight to the courts and the streets, they have been a thorn in the side of the government for months.
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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The South African government's plan to keep a lid on spending in the budget outlined this week will face a big test in the coming months when government workers finalise new wage deals.
The unions, representing 1.3 million workers, are at loggerheads with the government. Any deal above the five to six percent that has been set aside would add billions of dollars to expenditures and jeopardise the deficit projection of 4.6 percent of gross domestic product in the 2012/13 state budget.
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