COPENHAGEN – Brazilian soccer great Pele isn't worried President Barack Obama's star power could help Chicago win the bid for the 2016 Olympics at the expense of Rio de Janeiro.
Rio is seen as a slight favorite ahead of Friday's vote by the International Olympic Committee, but Obama's decision to fly into Copenhagen for the final presentation could swing the ballot in Chicago's favor. Madrid and Tokyo are the other candidates.
However, Pele said Tuesday that Rio "doesn't compete with Obama. We are competing against Madrid, against Tokyo, against Chicago."
The 68-year-old Pele pointed out that Rio is also bringing some big names.
"If they have Obama, we have Lula, we have Pele," he said, referring to Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Obama announced Monday that he will go to Copenhagen, joining first lady Michelle Obama to support his adopted home town's bid.
Rio also has a charismatic bid team, and is arguing that it is South American's turn to host its first Olympics.
"We have some reason to believe in Rio de Janeiro, not only Rio but South America, because we have never had the Olympics," Pele said after watching Danish teenagers playing soccer in two Copenhagen neighborhoods.
Rio gained IOC praise for having strong public support, a stable economy and experience from hosting the Pan American Games in 2007. Rio also is hoping to gain points for its fun-loving people and natural beauty, with mountains covered with thick green jungle towering above gorgeous beaches.
The Brazilian candidate has been successful in reducing crime recently, but news about crime in Brazil's second-largest city remains a common occurrence.
"Rio doesn't have any problems," Pele said. "The city, the economy is very good. The only country that didn't suffer with the (financial crisis) is Brazil."

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) –
Honduran de facto leaders pledged to reconsider a clampdown on rights and resume mediation efforts, as deposed President Manuel Zelaya appealed for help from the United Nations.

The deep divides within the Central American country echoed beyond its borders as the Organization of American States failed Monday after more than 10 hours of debate to reach consensus on the crisis sparked by the June 28 coup.

Amid widespread international criticism, de facto leader Roberto Micheletti said he was prepared to rescind a decree restricting civil liberties so that upcoming presidential polls are not affected.

"We're worried that this decree could affect the elections," Micheletti told journalists in Tegucigalpa, hours after soldiers shut down two dissident media outlets under the new measures. "If it's necessary, we'll revoke it."

Protesters earlier taped their mouths shut to symbolize the loss of their right to express themselves as they were prevented from answering Zelaya's call to converge for a mass protest.

Zelaya appealed to the UN General Assembly on Monday to restore law in Honduras in an address he gave by telephone from his refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa -- where he emerged after a surprise return last week.

"Anybody who had any doubt that a dictatorship is taking hold of my country, now with what has happened in the last 93 days of repression, I think any of those doubts that might have existed are dispelled," Zelaya said over a cell phone held by his foreign minister Patricia Isabel Rodas Baca.

Human Rights Watch was one of several groups to criticize the censorship imposed by the de facto government, condemning a decree banning public statements deemed to offend officials or the government.

"This kind of decree has been the norm for authoritarian rulers, from Chile's Pinochet to Cuba's Castros," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, HRW's Americas director.

While Latin American countries repeated calls to restore Zelaya to the presidency, a senior US representative to the OAS broke ranks and criticized Zelaya's return.

"The return of President Zelaya to Honduras, absent an agreement, is irresponsible and serves neither the interests of the Honduran people nor those seeking a peaceful reestablishment of a democratic order in Honduras," said Lewis Amselem.

As the pan-American body -- which suspended Honduras after the coup -- mulled over the crisis, the wavering de facto regime invited back members of an OAS mission it had expelled the previous day.

The foreign ministry said in a statement it was "pleased" to invite the preparatory mission to visit Honduras from Friday and apologized for sending back four officials, who were detained at the capital's airport on Sunday.

It also invited a mission of regional foreign ministers and top OAS officials to the country on October 7.

Brazil meanwhile ruled out the possibility of dispatching troops to protect its embassy in Honduras, after the de facto leaders had threatened to close it.

But late on Monday the de facto foreign ministry said it would ensure security at the Brazilian embassy, rowing back from previous tough talk of deadlines and demands.

"(We will) continue to grant protection to Brazil's offices... (although) diplomatic relations no longer exist," a statement said.

The de facto leaders are seeking to arrest Zelaya on charges of treason and abuse of authority.

They allege Zelaya, who veered to the left after his election and forged an alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, ignored court orders to drop plans for a constitutional referendum that could have given him another term.

Wood Fence Dallas

Five foot high fences (over which many people can see and talk) are increasingly being superseded by six-foot fences giving the impression of complete privacy.

Privacy fencing is the use of fences to protect privacy, usually by preventing outsiders from seeing onto a property. There are cultural differences with regards to the use of fences around properties. For instance, it is common in European countries to put a fence around the entire border of one's property, including the front border, with a gate to obtain access to the property. However, in many parts of North America, fences are commonly used only on the borders between properties that back onto each other (on the side away from the street) and along the sides of properties up to the point where the house begins. Such fences are often made of chainlink and do not prevent people from seeing into neighboring yards. They may be intended to mark property lines or to keep dogs in, or out of, yards. The front yards in such neighborhoods are often open to the street.

UNITED NATIONS – In the highest-level conference yet on climate change, 100 world leaders come to the United Nations on Tuesday to decide how to start an energy revolution.
While attention turns to U.S. President Barack Obama's first U.N. speech, the most substantial changes may come from what the presidents of China, India and other major economies spell out for billions of people and their households, businesses and farms in the decades ahead.
Those leaders are expected to make more ambitious commitments than the U.S. leader, whose hands are still tied by Congress.
"We are asking developing countries to do as we say, not as we did," said Ed Miliband, Britain's climate secretary, whose nation has pledged to cut carbon emissions by more than a third from 1990 levels by 2020, and said 40 percent of the UK's electricity by then would come from renewable sources.
Tuesday's U.N. summit and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh at the end of this week are intended to add pressure on the United States and other rich nations to commit to cuts and provide the billions of dollars needed to help developing nations stop cutting down their forests or burning coal.
China and the U.S. each account for about 20 percent of all the world's greenhouse gas pollution created when coal, natural gas or oil are burned. The European Union is next, generating 14 percent, followed by Russia and India, which each account for 5 percent.
Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to lay out new plans for extending China's energy-saving programs and targets for reducing the "intensity" of its carbon pollution — carbon dioxide emission increases as related to economic growth.
China has been cutting energy intensity for the past four years and could the new carbon intensity goal in a five-year plan for development until 2015. China already has said it is seeking to use 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
India, too, may draw away some of the spotlight for laying out plans for the fifth-biggest contributor of global warming gases to bump up fuel efficiency, burn coal more cleanly, preserve forests and grow more organic crops.
The United States, under former President George W. Bush's administration, long cited inaction by China and India as the reason for rejecting mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.
Tuesday's meeting is intended to rally momentum for crafting a new global climate pact at Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. Bush rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting global emissions of warming gases, which expires at the end of 2012, based on its impact on the U.S. economy and exclusion of major developing nations like China and India, both major polluters.
But neither China nor India say they will agree to binding greenhouse-gas cuts like those envisioned in a new climate pact to start in 2013. They question why they should, when not even the U.S. will agree to join rich nations in scaling back their pollution.
"The crisis today on climate change is the inability of the United States to put on the table credible emissions reduction targets for 2020," said Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister.
The EU is urging other rich countries to match its pledge to cut emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and has said it would cut up to 30 percent if other rich countries follow suit.
Japan's incoming prime minister, whose nation generates more than 4 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, has announced a new goal of a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.
Obama has announced a target of returning to 1990 levels of greenhouse emissions by 2020. Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate envoy, said the Obama administration is moving "full speed ahead" toward helping craft a global climate deal.
But with Congress moving slowly on a measure to curb emissions, the United States could soon find itself with little influence when 120 countries convene in Copenhagen.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a climate bill this summer that would set the first mandatory limits on greenhouse gases. But action in the Senate has been delayed as lawmakers wrestle with overhauling the health care system.

China's ambition to grow quickly but cleanly soon may vault it to "front-runner" status — far ahead of the United States — in taking on global warming, the U.N. climate chief said Monday.

"China and India have announced very ambitious national climate change plans. In the case of China, so ambitious that it could well become the front-runner in the fight to address climate change," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press. "The big question mark is the U.S."