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The weather in South Africa is getting warmer, but one is easy to feel a hotter atmosphere in Johannesburg, the host city of the Earth Summit, as the business center of the country is wrapping up its last preparations for the largest UN conference in history.
"It's great we host the summit. It means South Africa is being recognized by the world," said Tebogo Zware, a local volunteer forthe summit.
His words echoed the feeling of thousands of volunteers who aregreeting the influx of delegates to the summit at the international airport, the convention center, hotels and other public places.
Attired in traditional black but colorfully-lined costumes, thevolunteers try to say "Hello" to every delegate in his or her native language, however on most occasions, they learn it on the spot.
The streets of the city have been spruced up and thousands of sign posts or banners installed along the street.
"Feel the pulse, hear the soul, see the light, taste the culture and welcome to the sensational city," are the words on many of the banners.
In the Sandton Convention Center and Nasrec International Exposition Center, governmental and NGO delegates to the summit are lining in queues waiting to register.
Summit organizers said that by Thursday, more than 7,000 delegates had been accredited, only a small number of the estimated 60,000 participants. Organizers said that they had not expected so many guests to arrived so early, predicting a climax of accreditation in the next three days.
Despite the logistical challenges, Nitin Desai, chief organizerof the summit, said in a statement that he welcomed the surging number of people who are interested in the summit, which is officially known as the World Summit on Sustainable Development and will be held from Aug. 26 to Sep. 4.
"The enormous demand to attend the summit highlights the importance of Johannesburg. People really see this summit as an opportunity to address some of the world's most insidious problems:poverty and environmental stress."
South African President Thabo Mbeki spoke highly of the effortsmade by the organizers of the summit.
"We will show the world that we are capable of holding such big events and we must make a success of the summit," the president said.
However, environmentalists have warned that the huge number of participants could pose grave environmental threat to Johannesburg,claiming that the waste generated by the delegates would outrun the city's handling capacity.
To cope with the challenge, the summit organizers have installed in all venues of the meeting hundreds of bins for paper,cardboard, plastic and cans which will be collected and recycled.
Meanwhile, they are also making every effort to encourage delegates to consume less during their stay.
To prevent further air pollution, the summit organizers have provided more than 200 buses to take delegates around the main venues of the summit, and these buses are specially designed to reduce noxious emissions.
As the summit is drawing closer, security in the city has also been tightened. "Johannesburg has not been so safe for a decade. Ihave never seen so many policemen around," Zware said.
Security sources told Xinhua that about 300 police officers have been deployed to patrol the Sandton Convention Center, where more than 100 heads of state and government will hold roundtable discussions in the last two days of the summit.
Meanwhile, thousands of police officers and an unknown number of military forces have been deployed in other parts of the city.
A non-flying zone has also been set up within a five-km radius of the conference center. Security sources said that they are deploying a pilotless spy plane and could scramble a number of attack helicopters to guard the airspace over Sandton.
Despite the tight security effort, local anti-globalization groups have vowed to disrupt the summit from the beginning.
South Africa's national intelligence agency is reported to be particularly concerned at the protest plans of the militant Landless People's Movement and has been questioning its leaders.
International organizations such as Greenpeace said that they will join the protests so long as they remain peaceful.
"We are proud the summit will be held here, but the summit should bring concrete outcomes in reducing poverty and AIDS infection rate while increasing environment awareness," said JuliaDitshego, a local high school teacher who also serves as a volunteer.
"We expect great changes of the world where people are not poorand where the environment will be well protected, so that people will live in a better place," she said.
(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2002)
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