olympics

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Symposium held on Tokyo's bid to host the Olympics

The Association for a Progressive Metropolitan Administration on July 11 held a symposium to discuss Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Tsuru University Assistant Professor Takei Hideki stated that what Governor Ishihara Shintaro is trying to achieve by hosting the Olympics is to "turn Tokyo into a stronghold of multinational corporations."

Japanese Communist Party Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly member Yoshida Nobuo stressed that the metropolitan government is cutting its budget for welfare programs while using its bid to host the Olympics as a lever to promote large-scale urban development projects. Revealing that it accumulates 100 billion yen every year as funds for hosting the Olympics, he said, "By correcting its way of using tax money, it will be possible for the Metropolitan government to promote resident-oriented measures."

Participants expressed anger at Tokyo's wasteful spending. A man working for the metropolitan government criticized it for cutting its budget for medium- and small-sized businesses. A nurse said that it must halt its plan to close or merge public hospitals by using some of the large amount of money allocated for hosting the Olympics.
- Akahata, July 12, 2006