Valery's eyes burn ice blue as he stares towards the Black Sea coast just yards from his house. The local government has given him three months to pack up and leave, as the country begins preparing to turn Sochi and its environs into an Olympic playland. "We built our houses with our own hard-earned money, unlike [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin," said Valery, who makes his living fixing refrigerators. "Why should his children and the oligarchs' children get to play in the sea while ours are chased into the mountains?"

It is common knowledge among those of us who have investigated the track record of previous Olympic Games that the headline hype about the games 'boost for tourism' is an empty daydream.

A new report predicts that the value of the UK CCTV market will increase by 10 per cent by 2012, with the London Olympics leading the growth. And equipment sales are anticipated to reach over £450m in the same period.

The 2010 Winter Olympics, to be held in Vancouver-Whistler from February 12-27, 2010, is today a very real threat to Native peoples, the urban poor (many of whom are also Native), and the environment.

John Tusa, The Observer

I have lost count of the meetings I have attended to discuss the Cultural Olympiad, the showcase of British arts and culture planned to run alongside the 2012 Olympic Games.

Britain's tourism industry is warning that "woeful" government underfunding could jeopardise its prospects of achieving the target of a £2bn windfall from the London 2012 Olympics. It says that cuts to overseas marketing budgets are symptomatic of the government's failure to treat tourism seriously, and claims that the benefits of staging the games have been hyped by ministers.

Greetings everybody. Welcome to the first day of my Solar New Year. Which day I hereby name Kelsang Nortso Day. Read and see the video of my story of the day below.

Martin Slavin

The Chinese authorities are trying to limit the number of climbers on Mount Everest’s north side in Tibet. Officially the Chinese are preparing a trial run of the torch relay for the Olympic Games on the summit, but many speculate that the real reason is that Everest is close to Cho Oyu where Chinese army guards shot at Tibetan refugees in September.